The Dark Night Of The Soul:

The Dark Night Of The Soul: On the 25^th day of May our son Alvin Kerry Chadwick went to live with Jesus. It was an accident, a “Zip Line” that took him from us. He was a godly servant of God so we know where he is today. If I did not know that he is in heaven I do not know what I would do. Death is hard enough on us when a Christian family member dies but it would be so very much harder to have to see a loved one die and know that he or she would not go to heaven.

I am no stranger to death. I wrote in one of my blogs about the death of my childhood friend Crandfiel D. McGovern. This happened when I was very young. The death of my grandmother who I lived with in my teens was a sad and a glad experience. It was sad because I knew I would miss her but I was also glad because she was suffering so much with lung cancer and wanted to go live in heaven. My father’s death was because of a long time sickness and it was easier on me when he died. My mother was in her late 80’s when she died and she had dementia for some time before she went home to heaven. These deaths were hard but nothing like when Kerry died.

A friend who had buried his son when he was in his 30’s because of a car accident told me it was the hardest thing that he had faced in his life. He said you will never get over it. I have a settled peace because I know he served God so faithfully in his life time. The bible says: “Laughter can conceal a heavy heart, but when the laughter ends, the grief remains.” Proverbs 14:13 New Living Translation; and “For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” New International Version

I did not blame God for his accident. It was not God’s fault but Kerry’s. He was the manager of a Christian camp and they were testing the Zip Line. He said he was going to put a 300 pound weight on the line and send it down to see if it cleared the roof of the building that passed over. He put a 60 pound weight and it was no problem at all. To the naked eye it looked like it would clear the building with no problem. His daughter who strapped him in begged him not to go on it until he had tested it with the heavy weight but he was sure it would be no problem so he went down the line and hit the building roof then the zip line went crazy swinging from side to side and banging him against trees on both sides. He never did regain consciousness and died before the emergency vehicles could arrive. Human error and not God’s fault is my prognosis. Could God have stopped him? God can do anything he chooses. He made man a free moral agent and man can choose to drink and drive or text and drive and for too many it brings death. If God had made us puppets on a string then we could blame him for everything that happens to us. However, God wanted to give us choices thus He made us in His image as free moral agents.  As the people of Jesus’ day said about Jesus when Lazarus died, could not Jesus have prevented Lazarus from dying? Yes, he could have and he could have done a miracle and kept Kerry alive or he could have raised Kerry from the dead like he did for Lazarus.  It was not his will to do so.

It was said of some people in the Bible that died full of years. It could be said of Kerry that he died full of service for his Lord. He accepted Jesus as his Lord at an early age and served him in his teen years. I took him through the Billy Hanks disciple training; meeting weekly with him in a restaurant every Saturday morning for six months. In college he worked as assistant Baptist Campus Minister and pastored a small rural church in Southern NM. He went to Southwestern Baptist Seminary and pastored a small town church on the weekends. After he graduated he did Clinical Pastoral Training in a hospital in Harlingen, TX. Then he pastored a church in Deming, NM. Then he worked as a Baptist Campus Minister in Silver City, NM. He then went to Sitka, AK where he was a pastor for 10 years. While in Sitka he earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. In May of 2013 he came back to New Mexico to be the Camp Manager of Inlow Baptist Camp. He called it his dream job because he loved the camp that he had attended from early childhood through his teen years and had made a profession of faith and surrendered to preach the gospel. From there he went to Heaven.

ADVICE TO GRANDCHILDREN

            The biggest mistake people make regarding education is they think of education as a finished product. “I have finished my education” is an example of what you hear people say. Education is a process and never an accomplished fact. Instead of a graduation exercise a commencing exercise is better. When you finish High School you are just commencing a life -long learning process.

            When you are born the first four things you learn are the most important to you. They are foundational to you as quality of life issues. The four vital lessons are:

1. Learning to talk

2. Learning to walk

3. Learning to feed yourself

4. Potty training

           

            There are four learning issues that are vital to you as far as eternity is concerned. Without a proper relationship to God all learning will be of no eternal significance. These four are:

1. Learning of your need for salvation

2. Learning of God’s love for you

3. Learning of God’s provision for your salvation

4. Learning the proper response to receive God’s salvation

           

 This general advice I give to you:

1. Be a lifelong learner.

2. Learn from others. It is said that experience is the best teacher. This is not true. I don’t need to break my leg to know that it is not a good idea. Learning by experience is the most painful way to learn.

3. Learn to postpone pleasure. You do not need to have all the latest gadgets today. If you cannot pay cash wait until you can make the purchase with cash.

4. Pay your tithes and taxes first. Divide the remaining money into a ten-twenty-seventy plan. A. Save ten percent. B. Save twenty percent until you have an amount that is six months of your yearly salary. Invest some of the twenty percent.; then save the twenty percent to buy the things  you want to purchase – go on a cruise, etc. Bless others with some of the twenty percent. C. Live on the seventy percent. Never buy on credit anything except a house to live in and no more than one automobile at a time.

5. Live today for life does not allow practice days in preparation for future days.  ^"This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:24, NKJV)”

MAKING DECISIONS

            Sometimes when you make a decision you don’t know you are making a change for all time. At other times you know you are making a decision that will not be revoked. When I went to California I thought that I was going there to work for a time and did not know that I would not return to Arkansas to live. When I committed my life to Christ Jesus I knew that that would be a permanent decision. Of course I did not realize how it would affect every area of my being. I did not think this will determine where I work, what kind of work, where I would live or even what amount of money I would receive for my work. But all of these things were affected by my decision to make Christ the Lord of my life. You cannot say truthfully say, “No Lord”. You can tell God no. However, if God is the Lord of your life, you can only truthfully say, “yes Lord.” The reason is simple when you say “no” you are denying His Lordship over your being. By saying, “no” to the Lord you are saying, “You have no right to tell me what to do.”

            When, as a young boy, I repented of my sin; I confessed to God. “I am a sinner; I ask you to forgive me of my sins and come into my life and be my Lord”. I gave up my right to direct my life. The bible says that if you will confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved. Sometimes we say to someone you need to accept Christ as your Savior. The Bible never says that. The Bible says you accept him as Lord. The result of accepting him as Lord is that He then becomes your Savior. There is something fundamentally wrong when you want to be saved for all eternity but not want to have to love Christ enough to accept his Lordship over your life. What woman or man would accept a marriage proposal when the proposal was “I want you to be my lifetime mate but I also want you to know that I will have sexual relationships with other persons when I have the opportunity?”  No one in his or her right mind would consent to such a proposal. God offers salvation on his terms and not ours.

                  I came to Christ as a sinner. Even the good things I did were sin because I was a sinner by choice. My nature was that of a sinner. When I accepted the Lordship of Christ over my life I became, in the Apostle Paul’s words, a saint. This did not happen overnight but the instant Christ entered into my life I became a saint. Paul writes in 1Cor 1:2, “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours…” (the underlined words are my underlining) As you read the book of 1 Cor you became aware of the sins that this church was struggling with, but Paul did not write to the sinners in Corinth.  He wrote to the saints. He did not call them saints because they lived perfect lives, but because they had been, “sanctified in

Christ Jesus.” There is a difference between a saint who commits a sin and a sinner who can do nothing to please God because of his sin nature. I am a saint who sometimes commits sins for which I am sorry and for which I repent. Our problem with someone saying he is a saint is because of the modern day definition of the word saint. We define the word today as a person who is perfect is his actions. The biblical definition is a person who has been sanctified in Christ Jesus. He is not perfect in himself but has been declared perfect by God because of what Christ did on his behalf.

A change of venue

            In 1955 I graduated from Witts Springs High School with no idea on what my future would be like. I had planned on joining the Air Force when I graduated but changed my mind several months prior to finishing school. My high school coach told me he could get me a full basketball scholarship to attend a small college in Clinton, Arkansas. I had no plans whatsoever to attend college. I was tired of book studies. The principal of the high school wanted me to go into business with him. He would put up the funds to build a store in Witts Springs and I would run the store. It would be a blind partnership. This fell through when another local man opened a store. The principal did not believe the community could support two stores. So what was I going to do?

            My best friend at the time was Sammy Judd and I was also dating his sister who was too young to even consider marriage. Their folks were heading to California to work for the summer months. So I decided to hitch a ride to California. I would live with my older sister and get a job in the Los Angeles area till I could make up my mind as to what I wanted to do with my life.

            I arrived in Compton Ca. sometime in May or June, I don’t remember the exact date. I had no money, no job and no automobile. I began looking for a job in walking distance from where my sister lived. I found a job rather soon after my arrival working for a company that manufactured back yard swing sets. It did not pay very much but boarding at my sister’s home was not very costly. After a few weeks of work I had enough money to buy a used auto.

For fifty dollars I bought a 1939 four door Chevrolet. It was one of my better decisions. It was clean, mechanically sound but needed a paint job. I kept the car for over three years and other than tires, brakes and a carburetor overhaul I had no problems with it. I did the brake job and the carburetor overhaul myself so it was just a matter of buying the parts. Car gas was rather cheap, 17 and 19 cents per gallon.

            After a few months my brother-in law got me a job working for Trojan Battery Co. He had worked for the company for several years and was well thought of by the management. The neighbor who lived across the street also worked at the same place so we car pooled. I drove my car and they paid for my gas. 

A Wagon on the School House

            The Witts Spring School House was built by the WPA in 1935. This may have been the most exciting thing that had happened in our community up to that point. Of course in October of 1936 I was born and for me that was the most exciting thing ever to take place in our community, according to me, myself and I.

            The building was built of native stones. It was a rectangular building, which at first housed first grade through 12^th grade. It also had a gym for basketball with a too short court and a much too low ceiling. There was a crawl space under the whole building which was not tall enough to stand up in, but could house a bunch of things, including benches to be used for seating in the gym for graduation, drama presentations, etc.

            How do you drive a wagon on a building of this height? The answer is you don’t drive the wagon. You wait until Halloween night and get a bunch of country boys who are looking for mischief to perform on their community. They found one of the neighbors who had a rubber tire wagon and after failing at killing themselves by riding it down a curvy hill they came up with the idea to put the wagon on the school house. They roll it up to the school and disassemble it and using ropes they haul it piece by piece to the top. They reassemble it on top of the school. They accessed the roof by finding a window that they could go through into a class room. There was a small room on the stage side of the gym that had a ladder into the ceiling and a trap door onto the roof itself. I don’t know how they got it down. I was not present to witness that event. I assume that adults are as smart as boys and that they reversed the process the boys used to put the wagon there in the first place.

School Dramas

            One bad thing about attending a small school is all the things you miss out on. One good thing about attending a small school is all the great things you get to participate in. I got a part in a school play when I was in the 8^th grade. There were not enough high school boys interested in getting up before a live audience and acting or they did not want to take the time to memorize a three act play. But their slackness became my opportunity.

             The school put on two plays, one in the fall of the year and one in the spring. I  performed in every play for the rest of my years in public school. Back in those days I could memorize my part in a three act play from the time I was given the part on a Friday evening and came to school on Monday morning. My first parts were very small parts with very little dialogue. But by the time I entered high school I had a major role and most times one of the lead roles. Some of the plays were about country hicks so I had no trouble being in character. All I had to do was memorize the words and then just talk naturally. Most of the dramas we did were more laughs than serious stuff.

            We always played to a packed audience. There was not much competition in the way of entertainment in a small community, no television, no Movie Theater, etc. The money we raised paid for the books and the fee that the company who published the plays charged; and the rest, which was most of the funds, went to the school.

Death and funerals

            One thing about living in a small community is that you know everyone who lives there.Therefore when there is a death the whole school can go to the funeral. They are not required to attend but most did. This meant that I went to a good many funerals between first and twelfth grades. Most of them were for old people, some were infants. But the one which affected me the most was when my best friend died unexpectedly.

            His name was Crandfiel D. McGovern. He lacked 3 days being exactly two months younger than myself. He was 9 years, one month and 17 days old when he died. He was on school on Friday and sometime Saturday morning he died. He woke up during the night and told one of his older brothers he was thirsty. His brother got up and went to get him a drink of water. The water bucket was empty so his brother went out of the house to the spring and got a fresh bucket of water and gave him a drink. When morning came, they went to wake him, they found him dead. They never did not know what the cause of his death was.

            My dad went to town on Saturday morning and came home and told my mother that he had died during the night. I overheard him talking with my mother and went and told my older sister and brother that he had died and they accused me of telling a lie.

            At his funeral I looked on my best friend lying in his coffin and seeing the freckles on the bridge of his nose and on his cheeks and thought what a good looking boy he was. His death was a hard thing for me to deal with. This was the first time that I had felt a personal loss at a funeral.