“You can say what you think, but you will live what you believe”

-Mark Hall

Today I woke up to a message from Christian’s,one of my student’s, mom. The message stated the following:

Could not sleep. I wanted you to know we all need extra prayers at this time. Andy passed away today. Lizzy and I found him around 7:30 and he was already gone. We are not sure what happened or when but he had been there at least 12 hours per the coroner. His parents, sister and boys are in NC and I called them around 8:30 after all the stuff was taken care of and they took him away. They are flying home tomorrow. Talk later. Please pray for the kids.!!!

Andy is Christian’s dad. Christian has three siblings, a younger brother and sister and one older brother. When I read that message this morning, my heart stopped. I immediately grabbed a hold of my pillow and started weeping. The thought of losing my father was not bearable. I placed myself in Christian’s life for a moment and started to think of how he would feel. I started thinking of all of the things I wanted to say to him. My mind was going crazy with thoughts of how I was going to solve this situation for Christian, with thoughts of “what in the world am I supposed to say to something like this.” I had no clue. I immediately called Allison and told her the news. Throughout the conversation there was the normal responses of “oh my” and “that’s horrible, we need to pray”. However, majority of the conversation was filled with silence of not knowing what to say. Of having NO clue of what the answers were to this situation.

It was in that silence however, that God spoke to me.

It was a simple and quiet voice.

Nothing big, or dramatic.

It was simply a reminder of a video I had once watched of a song by Casting Crowns. It wasn’t the song so much that hit me or spoke to me, it was Mark’s story before the song. In this video Mark shares this story of a young boy in his youth, losing his father. Marks talks about the responses and the initial reactions by the other students in his youth.

So often I try to have the answers.

So often I try to step in and solve all the issues myself.

So often I try to be “super-christian-guy”.

Mark was right though, it’s not my job to have all the answers. It’s not my job to solve the issues. My job is simply to love on Christian. To love on Alex. To love on this family in such a horrible time. As much as I want to fix them for them, I can’t. All I can do is offer them what God has blessed me with. The blessing that is greater than any, is the blessing of love.

That is my job.
That is our job.
To love them like Jesus.

Please, pray for this family today and in the weeks to come.

Left back to front: Christian, Lisa, Nick, Alex, Lizzy

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