Life and the unexpected death of a teenager.

For the third year in a row, students of a small rural southern Indiana high school where I teach have had a death in the student body. Two years ago, a high school senior, Logan died in a traffic accident on the eve of the graduation day. In the school year of 2006-2007, a young man took his own life. Then two years to the day of the first death, another student perished in an accident while another passenger is life-flighted to a near-by hospital.

Amid all the grief and tears and total surprise, one cannot help but ask why? This last student to die had been a student of mine for a couple of years. She was rather quiet yet seemed really sweet and gentle with a smile that could light up any room she was in. Now, her life on this world is over. The memories of her will live on for her family, friends and relatives. Gone are the possibilities of being a wife, mom, and community supporter as she most surely would have been. The stark reality is there in front of us... the unavoidable, shocking reminder of her passing is placed squarely right before our minds eye.

What possible lessons can we learn from this? Is there any value to be gained from looking at the passing of one who was in the prime of life?

I'm going to suggest a few things that can help us all.

1. Life is uncertain. As the Bible says, "We do not know what a day may bring." Right in the middle of the day for a memorial to Chelsea's 1st cousin (Logan) who died two years ago, her life was cut down... ON THE VERY ANNIVERSARY of her Logan's death. Who could have thought of such a thing? While celebrating a life cut short with family and friends, yet another one passes on the anniversary. Unbelievable! Who on this earth knows what sorrows may be ours in the next minute?

We have this tendency to think that life will go on a usual. But then a semi-trailer plows into the back of car; a next door neighbor teenager goes on a mo-ped and gets killed by a careless driver; Chad, a healthy young man goes for a swim in a pond... never to surface out again; some terrorist hi-jacks a plane and plows into a sky-scraper. Who knows what a day will bring?

2. We must all be ready to face death. While it comes to the aged with seeming more frequency, yet the incident of yesterday reminds us that young people die as well. This is one of the hardest and saddest lessons. Humanly speaking, no one should have to bury their own children. I've seen a baby literally die in the arms of her mother while at church. There have been graveside services for high schoolers where parents have been so grief-stricken that medication seemed to be the only thing to stabilize the mother, while the father - grim faced stoically faces his desolation. And yet at one ceremony honoring the death of a high school son, the most amazing thing was seen. A mom and dad that were totally grief stricken, possessed at the same time a joy and peace that defied reason. I saw smiles that mingled with salty tears coming in almost a paradoxical manner. These parents had the sure hope that their son was Christ. He demonstrated it by the life he lived. I don't mean he was a 'good boy.' Chad showed his faith in Christ. He lived an exemplary life... fully and freely acknowledging that he was NOT a good boy... that Chad deserved hell because of his sin, yet trusted the death of Another on a cross as a sin-payment, an Innocent Substitute to face the roar of God's wrath against his own sin so that Chad wouldn't have to face the wrath personally. Chad Catiller's life demonstrated the piety of a teenager who was thoroughly converted.

3. There is a point to our lives. In a post-modern world, the effects of evolution having been hammered into our psyche scream "these events seem pointless... the 'good' and 'bad' all die... many old, some young... it all seems so random, so meaningless, so hopeless... the poor, the rich, the famous, the forgotten, the kind, the hurtful, all end up in the grave... what does it matter how one lives? The grave awaits us all!"

Don't our own lives demonstrate that we were created for happiness? We have this almost seemingly unquenchable desire to be satisfied, to be filled. We hunt for it in a gazillion different directions. We seek it in relationships, children, sports, jobs, families, possessions, hobbies only to find that contentment is just beyond our grasp. "If only I could have caught the ball, we could have won the game." "If I could only have this person in my life, I would be satisfied." Our goal for that contentment if so strong that we pursue it in lawful and unlawful, legitimate and illegitimate ways yet only to find the thirst is still there.

The writer of the "Chronicles of Narnia" penned this "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." What is the probable explanation? We were made to find our fulfillment in the God of the Bible... not just to know of Him intellectually and logically, but to experience the incredible delights that are found in having a life that is radically given to the pursuit of God in Christ Jesus. The writer said, "In Him, we move, live and have our being!"

([Now a parenthetical paragraph] - Now being totally transparent, I struggle in this area. I know it. I've experienced that joy, contentment and happiness. But it isn't a one time cure-all. God has so designed us that we are left full and yet discontented at the same time. Now this may seem paradoxical. "Malone, you are mad!" The contentment is found in Him. It is ongoing. It satisfies. It soothes. Yet I find myself discontented and the wonder of it (or should I say the stupidity of it) is that I often go to a broken cisterns to try and sate my thirst all the while knowing that the thirst can only be filled in Christ. Doesn't this show my continuing corruption, the war that is still waging inside my heart and mind? It also reveals what a traitor I can often be that I would try and go somewhere else to find that ultimate satisfaction rather than in Jesus. This is an ongoing example of what I need the Savior, to forgive and deliver me from such craziness).

Well I've thoroughly gone off track in this post. Yet, reader we can find that life does indeed bring uncertainty to us. We come face to face with not only the ugly reality that a young person's death is filled with grief for all those involved but also the ugliness of our own hearts. We have this 'driver' inside of us that wants satisfaction, fulfillment, contentment and happiness and we will seek for it in a myriad of ways often times in ways that we know are wrong, yet we press on. That 'driver' inside of us is so powerful.

Yet the only thing that ultimately satisfies our thirsts is in an initial drink in the Fountain of Life, then an ongoing daily, wholehearted pursuit of Christ in worship.