Learning to Love Through Loss

             The past couple of months have been a blur for our family.  We moved to a new town to start ministering to a new group of students and began this new chapter of our life.  As we have been learning our new town, new students, and striving to adjust to our new way of life some things get shoved aside sometimes.  The item that has been shoved aside for the past few weeks for me were the events of June 29^th that transpired five years ago.

            You see, June 29^th marks a day that will forever live in our hearts as that was the day that we welcomed our daughter Callie Grace Hart into this world.  Callie was a beautiful little baby with bright red lips who we had grown to cherish while my wife was pregnant with her.  At the 33 week check-up (June 27, 2007) we found out that Callie didn’t have a heartbeat and would be stillborn.  We were absolutely crushed and prayed for a miracle over the next two days.   On Friday morning around 9:23 am Callie entered this world only to have a few moments with her mom and dad before being taken away from us.  The tears we shed, the questions we asked, and the heartache we endured still remains fresh in our minds daily.  A few days later we buried our little angel and said goodbye to her physical body for the last time.  Although we have various memories of her throughout our house such a self in memory of her, pictures from the hospital, and even a little stone that I carry around in my pocket, the pain is still so real.  Although we will never see, hold, hug, or kiss our little girl this side of heaven, her life forever impacted several people and continues to be a ministry for Mindy and I, even though Callie never took a breath in this world.

            Each year we strive to remember our little girl by celebrating her birthday as a family.  Each time we do this it becomes more challenging as we seek to honor her life and remember the lessons that she taught us.  This year we took balloons with pictures Corban and Ellie had colored for their “sissy” in heaven and let them go in a park.  We sang Happy Birthday to Callie, enjoyed some cupcakes and tried to honor the life she represents, however brief it was.  This year however, was the most challenging for me because as Corban & Ellie get older they start asking more questions about Callie.  This year, Corban was stuck on the fact that Callie was not there so how could we have a party for her or sing Happy Birthday to her.  This caused Mindy and I both to break into tears several times during the “celebration.”  It was a challenging day but we wanted to strive to teach our children about their sister in heaven. 

It’s a hard thing to endure the loss of a child, something that we will never get over or forget.  Callie Grace touched our lives in a way that was so deep, because for me she taught me how to love.  Although I have known “love” in a variety of forms from my family, my wife, and friends through the years, Callie taught me about a different kind of love.  She taught me about sacrificial love and for the first time in my life, I started to really understand how much God loves me.  You see, God sacrificed His own Son on the cross so that I could have eternal life with Him and be reunited with my daughter one day.  The sacrifice He chose was great and very painful.  Callie Grace taught me about how you can love someone so much and lose them forever without any control over the situation.  While our loss may seem to fail in comparison to the loss that God endured when Jesus was crucified, our little girl showed us the depth of God’s love for us.  Without ever taking a breath or speaking a word she showed her daddy what it means to truly lay down your life for someone else.  She showed me what true love really is and I will forever be grateful to her for that lesson.

Callie Grace, you are missed dearly and we look forward to the day we will get to hold you in heaven!

Do We Encourage Questions and Doubts?

            During this week I have had two separate occasions that have caused me to examine my faith journey to see if I am encouraging students/parents to ask honest and sometimes challenging questions about their own faith journeys.

This week we are hosting our VBS and I am helping out with the 5^th and 6^th grade students.  This has been a wonderful blessing as I get to know these students who will be the future of our youth program at Faith UMC.  On Tuesday, after reading the Bible story (centering on Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead); a young girl said she had a question.  When I called on her she said, “Why did the people in the Bible want to kill Jesus, even though He did amazing things?”  This started a wonderful conversation with these young minds about faith and what Jesus did on the cross for them.  It was truly a wonderful time to be diving into something that I once thought would be well over the heads of 10-11 year olds!  I wondered though how many times to encourage these difficult questions or how often do we facilitate this type of learning.

For me, personally, asking questions has always been a great source of growing in my faith as a Christian.  I had professors in college and friends throughout my life that have always facilitated these types of conversations where questions and doubts can be expressed freely and openly.  For these people, I am forever grateful because they guided me through times of great faith formation.

However, this week I was forced to ask some more difficult questions of God.  Also on Tuesday, I found out that a former professor, pastor, and friend of mine was wrestling with cancer again, in the form of a brain tumor.  A little over a year ago, Stan Buck (lead pastor of Sonrise Church, Fort Wayne, Indiana) began fighting a battle with a brain tumor that was cancerous.  He underwent a procedure and a years’ worth of treatment and was told he was in remission for this entire year.  It was an amazing testimony to God’s healing power and love as he returned to full-time ministry and continued to serve with all of his heart.  However, last Friday, July 13^th, Stan returned to the doctor’s office only to find out that he was showing another aggressive tumor in his brain.  The doctors told him about some preventive measures that could be taken but they were just trails without any “solid results.”  As I read about his news and the brevity of what could be left of his life, I started asking God some difficult questions again.  All of the questions centered on one general them, “Why would a God who loves us allow this type of process to take place in the life of a person who is seeking to serve Him?”  Even as I read Stan’s words that still echoed hope, optimism and love it was hard to fight back the tears of a man who I respect hurting so much. 

This lead me back to the thought of encouraging children, students, parents, and adults to ask difficult questions about their faith journey and seeking to find an answer for these difficult questions.  Are we as a church facilitating this type of discussion or merely skating on the surface?  Are we willing to dive into God’s Word to find the answers or rely on someone else to spoon-feed us the answers?  Please understand that this is not my attempt to say the church (as a whole, across the world) is failing but I am just wondering are we creating space to have these challenging, yet encouraging conversations?

Joyful Servants

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace:

1 Peter 4:10 (ESV)

                At the age of sixteen, I started my first job as a server at a small restaurant in our town to earn some spending money for myself.  However, the benefits that came from that first job forever changed my outlook on life.  While waiting tables, cleaning up spills, washing dishes, and occasionally preparing food, I began to understand the importance of serving others.  I quickly learned that quick, friendly, and enthusiastic service would get me a larger tip pushing me to always be in a good mood.  However, as I continued to work in this restaurant until graduation, I began to understand the joy that can come with serving others.  Seeing people have an enjoyable dining experience simply made me feel better about the job I was doing and the service I was giving to them.

                In college, I was able to take a mission’s trip three times and have led several since.  While my service is no longer rooted in receiving a big tip it is still anchored in seeing the positive reaction of others.  Joy floods my heart, when I am able to help other people and bless their lives through my God-given talents and skills I have acquired over the years.  The blessing of serving others is something that has always captivated my heart!

                This past week, June 30-July 7, our church supported over sixty people to go and serve others in the name of Christ.  I was thrilled at the opportunity to be a part of this experience as I knew it would impact not only those we were serving but also the lives of our students and adults as well.  I was anxious to see how God would work through the projects as we joyfully served others.  However, my week took an unexpected turn when I had to leave the trip to go and support my father in the hospital who had some complications after a recent surgery.  My dad was able to return home on Wednesday and I returned back home late Wednesday evening.  At this point I could have stayed home and enjoyed the most conveniences that many of us have, however something continued to pull at my heart to go back to Steubenville and see the work that had been accomplished during the week.

                On Friday, I was able to travel back to Steubenville to see the projects, reconnect with the mission’s team, and see an amazing group of seniors lead devotions that night.  Their smiling faces, sweaty shirts, and loving hearts were on full display as each of them shared about the work they had done during the week.  Despite the heat and the lack of modern conveniences these students/adults embraced the challenge to be the hands of Jesus and serve others with a joyful heart.  Their smiles, words, high-fives, and hugs all made me honored to be the youth director at Faith UMC.  The joyful service that each of the individuals on the trip expressed to others was amazing to see and I am thrilled at the opportunity that I will have to serve alongside of them in the future.

                Thank you, Faith Church for supporting this life-changing ministry!  Thank you mission team member’s for your joyful hearts of service!  And thank you Butch Ransom for your vision, leadership, and sharing your heart of service to those in need over the past 25 years!

A New Look-Starting Fresh

  A little over a month ago, our family moved from what we had known to be home for the past couple of years, a great group of students, and wonderful volunteers to start fresh in a new ministry setting. 
   This is always a challenging experience to learn a new setting, practices, and customs while seeking to implement the vision for youth ministry that God placed on my heart over ten years ago.  As we moved to this new setting, in a rather quick manner, we were blessed to have plenty of assistance moving into our new home, welcoming people helping us get acquainted, and a caring staff, which included two other new hires, and two new positions!  This move to Faith UMC has been a wonderful blessing for our family and we look forward to serving our students in this wonderful church for many years.