I Will Remember Those Words

I will remember those words. “Something is wrong with Johnny. He won’t wake up.” I hurried to the bedroom, my heart pounding. I was still reeling from the events of the previous night when he had shown up intoxicated at our Christmas Eve service. But when I opened the bedroom door, all my anger was replaced with a wave of confusion and shock. His face, once full of life, was now ashen and still. Johnny was not waking up.

As a family, we were shattered to learn that my son had succumbed to an accidental overdose. The coroner’s words, “acute mixed drug toxicity,” reverberated in our ears. We were a close-knit family, yet none of us had any inkling of his addiction. He had concealed it so well, veiling his pain with a facade of joy and humor that none of us had seen through.

For the majority of my first year of grief, I felt like I was peering through a foggy window. I could make out some things but couldn’t fully grasp them. I was desperate for answers. How could I comfort and guide my family through this? Should I continue preaching? My son died of an overdose! People will surely judge me as a pastor. How could I find comfort in this darkest of pain, God? The grief was not a one-time event but a long thru-hike on a trail I had never seen.

Throughout this confusing year, God brought clarity and comfort to my broken heart, but it was comfort from unlikely places. And yet, there were discernible mile markers on this road of comfort. The first mile marker came shortly after my son’s death. Desperate for comfort, I turned to the Bible. What should I read? The Psalms? The God of all comfort passage in 2 Corinthians 1:3–7? None of those likely places entered my mind. The first book I thought of was Ecclesiastes. It seemed strange to me, but I was desperate. Little did I know that this unlikely choice would become a source of profound comfort.

As I began to read Ecclesiastes, I did not sense any comfort. It is a depressing book. The world is messed up, and vanity infuses every aspect of life. Very comforting, Lord, thank you very much. Nevertheless, I trudged forward. When I read Ecclesiastes 7:16–17, my search for comfort in this sad wisdom book ended.

Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time?

“Why should you die before your time?” I will remember those words.

One of my fundamental beliefs is that every time you read the word of God, God speaks. So, with that question, God was talking to me. My son died before his time. Sons are supposed to bury their fathers. God acknowledged my pain with that question from Solomon, which comforted me. In this sin-broken world, people make sinful choices, and sometimes those choices kill them. Much could be said about Ecclesiastes 7, but it is not my purpose to provide detailed exegesis here. God is sovereign, of course, and Johnny died in God’s providence. My faith in God’s sovereignty and providence has been a constant source of comfort and strength.

The comfort God provided in that question answered one of my questions. Should I continue preaching? Yes. Why? Because there are many people like my son who are suffering from a hidden pain and medicating that pain with a balm that will not heal. They need the gospel of the one who is the “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3). I cannot but preach of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, who brings hope to the hurting. From that moment forward, I preached with an urgency I did not have before. This grief, while painful, has also transformed me and my ministry.

I reached the second mile marker while driving home. I usually listen to talk radio or sermons, but I listened to Christian radio that day. Natalie Grant’s voice filled the car. Her song, “Held,” resonated with me in a profound way, reminding me of God’s love and presence even in the midst of my grief.

This is what it means to be held
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved
And to know that the promise was when everything fell
We’d be held

I do not know what people thought as they drove by me as I pulled over to the shoulder, slumping over the steering wheel and sobbing. I did not care because I knew something better. God sees me. God is holding me. I will remember those words.

The third mile marker also came while I was driving. I decided I needed time to get away and spend a few days praying. An hour and a half away, a Christian retreat center offered pastors free rooms for personal retreats. I took them up on the offer. I realized I had no snacks on my way to the retreat center, so I stopped at a Wal-Mart. Passing by the friendly greeter, a book cover caught my eye. It was a framed picture of a smiling boy playing in a sandbox. Then, I did something I usually do not do. I bought a book solely based on its cover.

This was not a spur-of-the-moment purchase. Instead, it was God’s sweet providence, comforting me right when I needed it in the way I needed it—with words. In his novel Room of Marvels, James Bryan Smith tells the story of a Christian author who goes on a retreat to grieve after losing his mother, his best friend, and his two-year-old daughter in three years. I read the book on the first day of my retreat. I read, I smiled, and I cried. Just a side note: Smith’s book was first published on December 31, 2003, five days after Johnny died.

One scene in the book captured my feelings at this juncture in my grief. Tim, the protagonist, is dreaming. In this dream, he converses with a character named Jack, who looks like C. S. Lewis. At the end of their conversation, they go on a walk.

We began walking up a gentle slope, following a soft dirt path that—despite its curves—seemed to be leading somewhere, like the Yellow Brick Road. I thought about The Wizard of Oz as we walked, and it occurred to me that I was a little like all four of the characters in The Wizard of Oz. I needed a heart to feel love for God again, a brain to somehow understand why there is so much suffering, courage to keep going on, and perhaps most of all, like Dorothy, I was longing for home. I was hoping for something better at the end than a man behind the curtain. (James Bryan Smith, Room of Marvels, 54–55).

Christ is much better than a man pulling levers behind a curtain. “When he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). I will remember those words.

The book of Job marks the last mile of my first year on the road of comfort. Sometimes, people ask me how I got through the death of my son. Most people are kind in their questions, seeking to empathize with me. Others are looking for the seven steps of healthy grieving or how to navigate the stages of grief. My reply is the same for both groups. Somewhere toward the end of the first year, I could say with Job, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21). I did not force myself to say this. It was not some trite, “I’m going to praise the Lord anyway.” It was my heart’s cry from a place of lament to a place of healing. At that moment, God assured me I was going to be okay. I cannot tell you how God did it, but he caused me to say those words.

Job 19:25–27 provides the hope behind Job’s words in Job 1:21.

For I know that my Redeemer lives,
    and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
    yet in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see for myself,
    and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
    My heart faints within me!

I can acknowledge God’s sovereignty over the death of my son and worship him at the same time because one day I will see my Redeemer. When I see him, “Death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore” (Rev. 21:4). I will remember those words.

Twenty years have passed since Johnny’s death. I wish I could tell you that you reach a point when you are over the death of a loved one, but I cannot. I am still traveling the road of God’s comfort and may have many mile markers to pass. When I am sad, I weep. I laugh when I remember some funny scene from our son’s life. When I hurt, I remember words—the words that comfort me. I remember the Word of God. I will remember those words.