Was that you, God?

So, I hopped in the car and started the drive home. As would be expected, I turned on the radio to listen to the Phillies game. They were playing the Colorado Rockies on this particular evening. As I mentioned in my last post, I was a bit frustrated with and rather pessimistic about the 2007 Phillies at this point. I don't remember all the particulars anymore, but I do remember that the Phillies were losing the game when I turned it on.

I don't recall how long I had listened or what exactly happened, but I was frustrated enough (my general mood given the meeting I had just come from probably wasn't helping) to turn the game off. As I was continuing to drive up the road, grumbling about the Phillies in my head (and quite possibly aloud), just knowing this was going to be another year when they fell short, the words "Don't lose hope" suddenly came into my head. It's really hard to describe what was going on here, but it just completely felt like something that was coming from outside of my own thoughts and musings, like someone else was entering the conversation. Was this God speaking to me?

You have to understand something here - up until about the last year, I had very minimal confidence in my ability to hear from God, at least on my own. On the rare occasions where I was willing to believe God was speaking to me, I would invariably preface it with "I'm not really someone who hears from God" or some variation on that theme. So, for me to quickly tag something as a potential word from God, especially in what was a very "non-spiritual" context, it had to have grabbed my attention pretty significantly.

One thing I immediately understood - if this was, in fact, a word from God, He wasn't just talking to me about the Phillies. I mean, maybe God is a big baseball fan, but I was pretty sure if He was giving me a message, the real point was about the other subject of the evening - Lynn. I believed He was telling me not to lose hope for Lynn, and that the Phillies were his way of confirming it.

Perhaps now you might understand one of the reasons why I've kept this under my hat to a large degree? To this day, it still seems a bit out there, even to me, and I lived it. Needless to say, I was skeptical. Along with my general skepticism about my ability to hear from God, there was the simple matter that I've always, and continue to be to this day, very cautious when I feel like I hear something from God that is what I know I really want - because it's not particularly easy to be objective in these cases. I mean, let's evaluate what I felt like I was hearing from God here - that my good friend was going to be healed from a fatal disease, and that my favorite baseball team was going to finally make the playoffs. There's not much question that's something I could dream up. And let's be realistic, the Phillies were right in the wild card hunt - as much as my past memories told me otherwise, making the playoffs was still a pretty strong possibility.

Still not really knowing what to think, I turned the radio back on and listened as the Phillies came back and won that particular game. As I got home, I determined to file the events of the evening away, taking a "wait and see" approach. I mean, after all, in a few weeks I would know if the Phillies made the playoffs or not, and if they didn't, there wasn't much more to be considered.

Some context

In my last post I told you to remember the fact that Lynn and I were both Phillies fans, because it would be important later. Well, in order to put this part of the story in proper context, I have to give provide a mini-history of the Phillies themselves. It's something else to be writing this out only hours before the Phillies open up the World Series against the Yankees, seeking to win their second straight championship.

The Philadelphia Phillies baseball team is one of the oldest professional sports teams in the US, with a history that goes back well over 100 years. They've been around for a long time, and for most of that history, they've been, well, pretty bad. Earlier that summer, the Phillies had suffered their 10,000th loss as a franchise. Actually, I missed being at that game by one night because they won when I was there. When the Pittsburgh Pirates finished off their 17th consecutive losing season in 2009, they set a major league record, wiping the Phillies record of 16 from the books. People make a big deal these days about how the Cubs have gone 101 years without winning a World Series, they made a big deal about how the Red Sox went 86 years in between championships. The Phillies had a similar run at the beginning of their history, going 77 years before winning their first, and as of the summer of 2007, their only, championship.

That happened in 1980, when I was about 6 months old. They made it back to the World Series in 1983 before losing to the Orioles, but by the time I was old enough to start being a fan, they were pretty much back into their historic pattern of ugliness. In fact, from the time I can remember following them through 2000, every season, with one notable exception, ended with more Phillies losses than wins. The exception, 1993, was glorious, right up until the point when it ended in the World Series, with Joe Carter's series ending home run off of Mitch Williams in Game 6.

In 2001, there was a shift. The Phillies went from being terrible every year, to being good, but not quite good enough, year in, and year out. Every year between 2001 and 2006 (with the exception of 2002, when they only won 80), the team won at least 85 games, and in most of those years they finished agonizingly close to a playoff spot, just missing out in the final days of the season. I'm honestly not sure what was harder on me as a fan - when they were just terrible, or when they were always getting my hopes up only to dash them.

2007 was shaping up to be another one of those "good, but not good enough" years, and early September had been particularly frustrating. The team had won 4 straight from the archrival Mets at the end of August to close within a very manageable 2 games behind in the division. However, by September 10th, the day of our meeting, they had managed to give all 4 of the games that they had picked up back with a rough stretch of play that had corresponded with a Mets hot streak. They were only a couple games back in the wild card, but I just wasn't very impressed in general, and while I refused to give up completely, I was resigning myself to yet another season that would end in a frustrating near-miss, with no postseason for the 14th straight year.

So, anyhow, that's what was going on with the Phillies as our meeting broke up that night and I said my goodbyes. As I was about to walk out to my car, Lynn suggested I could go in the house and see if that night's game was on TV. I declined, as I needed to get started on the hour drive home, and I could listen to the game on the radio in the car. As I declined, I threw out an offhand comment, paralleling our Phillies to the word of the evening: "Yeah, speaking of not losing hope..." Lynn and I both chuckled about it knowingly, and I headed out to my car.

A loss of hope...

And so, after yet another lengthy hiatus, I am back. And I have a story to tell. I make no promises about how long it will take me to tell it, because I know that only gets me in trouble...

Much of this story happened over 2 years ago, and much of it I have never shared with more than a handful of people who are particularly close to me, or particularly close to the situation. This is for reasons that are my own, and which may become clear as I go along. I choose to share it more publically now, for reasons which are also my own, and which also may become clear as I go along. Have I piqued your curiosity yet?

Anyhow, I have written at various times over the last few years on this blog about my dear friend Lynn, who spent several years serving God in Thailand, and whose team I went on trips to support in 2007 and 2008. I've also mentioned that he is currently suffering from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, a degenerative nuerological disease in which, simply put, the brain gradually loses the ability to communicate with the rest of the body. There is no medical cure for ALS, and as such, it is fatal.

It was in late summer of 2007, while Lynn and his family were back in the US on home ministry, when I first heard the term "ALS" in connection with Lynn. The diagnosis wasn't official at this point, but it was what the doctors were strongly suspecting. I got an e-mail that Lynn sent out to some of his core support team with this news in it one day while I still was at work, and it was all I could do not to burst into tears in the middle of my office. I was stunned, especially since I didn't even know Lynn had been having the health difficulties that had led him to see the doctors in the first place. Needless to say, it was very difficult to finish off the day at work, but I got through it.

Oddly enough, I was going to be seeing Lynn in a few days. In the way of background, one commonality that Lynn and I share as friends is our love of the Phillies. We came by it in different ways - Lynn's entire family on his Dad's side are Phillies fans, stemming back to Lynn's paternal grandmother. (That's right, I said grandmother.) I, on the other hand, am first generation. My parents are both Phillies fans, but they got it from me, not the other way around. I'm not particularly sure why I'm a Phillies fan. I just always remember loving baseball, and that the Phillies were the first team I encountered. Anyhow, having gotten that little piece of information out the way (remember it, it will be important later), Lynn and I had planned a couple months before to attend that Friday night's Phillies game together. We had 5 1/2 or so hours in the car ahead of us, and one of the topics had obviously already been set.

I remember that car ride like it was yesterday. I spent much of the trip down uncomfortably babbling on about the many thoughts that had been running through my head over the few days between the news and the game. Much of my ramblings centered around my theology of healing - that God can and does heal, but doesn't always, and how whether Lynn lived or died I believed God would work good in it and bring glory to Himself, and advance His kingdom in Thailand. There was other stuff, but it was pretty much all variations on that theme. I kept running my mouth to the point where later in the car ride Lynn called me out for it, and let me know that I needed to work on my listening skills. Tough love, but he was right. Listening isn't always my best skill to begin with, and it can get really bad when I get uncomfortable.

I was uncomfortable because, the truth of the matter was this - I had basically conceded Lynn's life. Despite my belief in God's power to heal, when I had seen those letters "ALS", I had already made the determination, whether I would have admitted it to myself or not, that Lynn was going to die from this illness and whatever work God was going to do in this situation wasn't going to include healing. Why? I'm still not 100% sure to this day, but it will probably make more sense as I get further along. The simple fact of the matter was that I was fixated on the physical reality that was right in front of me, and defining God's work on the basis that this diagnosis, which was absolutely real, was the final word, and something that God was going to have to work within the boundaries of. Even though my "head" view of God allowed for a miraculous healing, my "heart" view of things had already ruled it out.

A little over 3 weeks later, on September 10th, I was gathered with Lynn, his wife Amy, and the rest of their core support team at Lynn's parents' house (where they were staying while on home ministry) for a team meeting. This was to have been our last meeting before Lynn and Amy returned to Thailand on September 12th, a return that was now on indefinite delay due to the medical situation. Obviously, there was only one subject on everyone's hearts.

As we gathered, Lynn began to share how God had given him the word that his sickness was not unto death, as in the story of Lazarus in John 11. Obviously, given where my heart was at, this was rather difficult for me to accept, and I approached it with requisite skepticism. "Of course that's what he heard, that's what he wanted to hear." and other variations on that theme were playing in my mind. I was hoping against hope that he was right, but really not believing that he was, for the most part.

As he continued to share, he spoke about the kind of people he wanted to have around him and supporting him in this time - people that wouldn't lose hope. Do you think that didn't drill right into my heart? I had completely lost hope and given Lynn up for dead from the minute I got that e-mail. Heck, the diagnosis wasn't even final yet - but that hadn't stopped me. I remember tearing up, wishing I could feel differently, but not finding it my heart to do so.

We ended the formal part of the meeting by gathering around Lynn and Amy and praying for them. As we prayed, my heart was moved and I prayed aloud, confessing that I had lost hope, and also claiming a willingness to trust Lynn, to trust in what he believed God was saying to him. And you know what, as I prayed that, I felt a release, and I believed that I could do it, that I could trust in what God was saying to Lynn. And maybe I could have, maybe that would have been enough (probably not). However, because of the events that followed, starting immediately after that meeting, I never really had a chance to find out.