On Tragedy and the Comfort that Comes from God

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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I have seriously hesitated to make any comment whatsoever about the tragedy, the very public tragedy that has taken place in the life of Steve and Curtis Chapman.

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I don't know Steve and Curtis Chapman. Steve Camp does, and that's the only connection really

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I have. Many good things have already been said, but as some of you know,

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I wrote a book a few years ago, a number of years ago now actually, called Grieving Our Path Back to Peace, and for a number of years

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I worked as a hospital chaplain. That shocks a lot of folks. It was the toughest work

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I ever did. And I have done a lot of study of grief counseling and the process of grieving that all human beings go through, whether Christian or not.

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The difference being whether we go through it with hope or not. But I've hesitated to address this issue because one of the first things that I learned as a hospital chaplain is that sometimes words are the wrong things.

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Sometimes you are placed under tremendous pressure to have magical words to say in difficult situations in the face of impending death or death that has just taken place.

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And the fact of the matter is there are no magical words. Sometimes an arm around the shoulder, holding a hand, is all you can do.

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And I learned that fairly early on. I hope no one will say to Stephen, I understand what you're going through, if you've never experienced what he's gone through.

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I learned early on that's the worst thing you can say. You don't say, I understand, because the fact of the matter is you don't.

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Grieving is unique. Grieving may have commonalities amongst us all because we're humans, we're made in the image of God.

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Anyone old enough to love is old enough to grieve, but the specific loss is always unique.

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And you don't say, well, I understand, unless you really do, unless you likewise have lost a young child.

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I did not lose a young child, therefore I would never say to someone, well, I understand. But I will share a story, it's difficult for me to share, but I will share a story that maybe will at least help all of us to pray for the

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Chapman family. Especially to pray for that teenage boy that was driving, his son that was driving the vehicle.

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Oh, I just pray that God will protect him and bear him up and comfort him.

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This was an accident, there was no, I just hope he can find the foundation, that he has the foundation to be able to work through this situation.

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We all need to pray for him, but I'll share a story, because it changed me, it changed me completely.

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It was early on in my time at the hospital, there was this sound, to this day, whenever I hear a sound similar to this, it causes me to sweat.

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But there was a code bell that would go off in the hospital, my job as a chaplain, whenever that went off, it would go off and then there would be a location.

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Emergency room, CCU, wherever it was, there was a cardiac arrest, and I would drop whatever

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I was doing and get there. And my job, in essence, was to be the person between the family and the doctors, an avenue of communication.

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If it was in the emergency room, that normally meant that an ambulance was coming and that the person in the ambulance had coded.

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And my job then was to stand near the door, and as they came in, I would activate the motion sensor so they wouldn't have to wait for the door to open.

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And then my job was to watch for the family, there was a tiny little family room, you could barely get three or four people in it.

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And my job was to get the family in there, and again, act as the go -between, between the emergency room doctors and the family.

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Now in an ER, you have the head nurse, and head nurses are chiseled out of granite. They feel nothing, or at least we think they don't.

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And one day, the code bell went off, and I went into the emergency room, and I knew immediately that this was going to be a different situation.

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Because, remember the old emergency 911 television series where you had this radio room?

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Well, there was a radio room there as well. And as I came into the

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ER, I saw everyone was gathered around the radio room. And I also saw more police than I had ever seen, and more kept coming.

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And I was informed that there was a nine -month -old baby girl being brought in, who was in cardiac arrest.

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I wasn't given any more details than that. There was just a heaviness in the room, and when the ambulance pulled up,

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I see coming around the corner this gurney, and this huge fireman is riding on the gurney.

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He's standing up on the gurney, and he's doing little chest compressions like this on this beautiful baby girl who was not nine months old.

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She was six months old. And so, of course, I activate the door. They come rushing by.

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He has this horrible look on his face, and I start looking for the family, and here comes an older woman.

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And that's when I discover this isn't mom and dad. This is grandma.

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And this is the first time that mom and dad have left baby with grandma.

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And the story starts to come out. Grandma put the baby on a mattress on the floor.

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Didn't have a bassinet or anything like that. And trying to be as safe as possible, put the baby on a mattress on the floor, and somehow the baby rolls and rolls off the mattress in such a way that she becomes stuck between the wall and the mattress and suffocates.

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Don't know where mom and dad are. Well, mom and dad are at the lake, and they're going to try to find mom and dad at the lake.

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I never saw mom and dad because I heard it took like a full day to even find them.

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I think I'm going to be there all night because the younger the patient is, the longer they're going to keep trying, and especially a six -month -old little girl.

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But I was very surprised at how quickly they called the attempt. There was just no response.