Alcoholism and My Friend, Robert

This weekend marks a special birthday to me.  It would have been the birthday of a long-time friend of mine.  He died nearly two years ago of an enlarged heart.  He was only 40 years old.

About 14 years ago, I was an aspiring writer whose passion was poetry.  I had ventured downtown to an ecclectic coffee shop to observe people, be inspired, and write poem after poem into the late night.  I did this often.  Apparently I wasn’t the only one who came here for good coffee and inspiration.  Robert lived a few streets over in a worn-down apartment building and his only mode of transportation was his own two feet.  He walked in to this coffee shop that evening with a sketchpad and his drawing pencils.  He literally bounced a little when he walked, he had such a spring in his step.  We struck up a conversation and although I’m fairly confident I didn’t share my poetry with him that night (I was rather shy about my work), he showed me his amazing drawings.  Although his types of drawings were not what you would consider beautiful or serene (he sketched monsters and villians, much like you would find in a comic book), there was no denying his incredible talent, and the detail he put into each sketch showed an unbelievable patience and skill.

We became good friends from that night on.  He spent Thanksgiving with my family one year and we would go to concerts and movies together often.  But more often than not we would meet in our favorite coffee spot and talk the night away or attend a poetry slam together.  He was a kindred spirit.  He was also a man deeply entrenched in alcoholism.

Drinking was the one stable constant in his life–his trusted friend that he turned to more than anything or anyone else.  As much as I tried to “rescue” him, I was in school at the time and couldn’t be with him 24 hours a day.  He did not have family nearby, and his drinking alienated him from others. 

I remember one morning my roommate woke me up at 3am.  A nurse from the hospital downtown was on the phone.  Robert, in a drunken stupor, has been picked up by the police for stumbling through the streets and falling down, injuring himself.  He had requested they call me.  I will never forget the drive from the hospital to his apartment that early morning.  It was as if I were a priest and Robert were a parishioner.  He was confessing, through tears and regret, the secret years of his life that he wasted by drinking, the relationships that were ruined, and the unforgiveable (to him) things he had done during his dances with the drink.  I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen a man that broken, that raw, and that honest.  Maybe that was a cry for help. 

Yet his drinking continued.  As a sober man, Robert was sincere, decent, intelligent, and caring.  He would give a person the shirt off of his back at the first hint that they needed it.   He had a heart of compassion and love.  It was painful to watch his nightly drunkenness turn to depression and despair, and in hindsight I myself feel pain when I think of the times I innocently had a drink with him.  I know now that I missed many an opportunity, and no doubt simply enabled his behavior.    

Although I spoke to him about my faith–he knew that I was saved by grace–and although I let him know that he could be too, Robert was not a believer.  After he moved out of state, I sent him a Bible and a clearly outlined salvation message, but in all the years I knew him, I stopped short of knocking down his door, intervening in his life (for his alcoholism) or following up with him as to why he was rejecting Jesus.  I can only assume that he continued to deny Jesus the opportunity to come into his life, even up until his life was over.  I pray that I’m wrong.

I vacillate between the deep regret that haunts me over what I should have done for Robert, and the small hope that lives inside that maybe, in one of his darker moments, he remembered what I shared with him and made a decision for Christ that saved his eternal life.  Nevertheless, there will never be another person that can take the place of Robert in my life, and I hope and pray that there is never another opportunity wasted for me to be bolder for Christ.

And so this weekend, I remember Robert fondly.  And I also remember The Great Commission, and recommit myself daily to my purpose in this life.

“Go then and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19).

Death Too Soon

I remember about a year ago hearing quite a bit about a man named Randy Pausch after he appeared on Oprah.  He was dying of pancreatic cancer and delivered his “Last Lecture” on her show.  I remember being moved to tears as I watched him say goodbye to his children, his wife, and leave them with the most important life lessons that he had learned over his 40-something years.

This past week, I opened an email from my husband.  He had found a moving story of a 37-year old woman who was also in the stages of dying from an agressive cancer (initially breast cancer).  I began watching her “last lecture,” if you will, and again, I was moved.  But Rachel Barkey’s wisdom for the world included one element that Randy Pausch’s did not. . .Jesus. 

At the time, I prayed fervently that Mr. Pausch knew Jesus personally during his illness and at his death.  I cannot imagine facing a disease that ravages your body and mind and threatens to end your life without also knowing that “this too shall pass” and what awaits is far more extraordinary than anything anyone could imagine on earth.  That is why this video from Rachel Barkey is so touching and so important to pass on to family and friends.  It is a short 55-minute video and if you do not have time to watch it, even in segments, there is a written transcript available as well (be sure to print off both Part One and Part Two).  A short time after this video was recorded, Rachel went home to be with the Lord.  I would encourage you to watch her video and hear her words with your heart.  Your life may be changed as a result.

Rachel’s website, entitled “Death is Not Dying,” where you can learn more about her and her family, as well as watch the video:

http://deathisnotdying.com/fullvideo/

If you would prefer to read the transcript:

 http://www.reviveourhearts.com/radio/roh/today.php?pid=10243

If you are a book lover, check out Rachel’s book list–excellent books by phenomenal authors:

http://deathisnotdying.com/booklist/

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?’”

The Fragility of Life

People pass away every day, but unless we lose someone that we know personally, our own death may not be something that we think about frequently.  And yet when in the course of one week, we lose 4 public figures–Michael Jackson, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Billie Mays–we are faced with a very real and haunting (for some) thought:

Life is fragile.

We work hard to achieve success, acquire wealth, fill the aching voids in our heart, and to look good in society.  But often times, we give very little thought to what is beyond this life.  We get caught up in preparing a comfortable life for ourselves here and now and forget about the comfort of our afterlife.  And then one day when it hits us that life is fragile and fleeting, we find that all we have chased after here on earth will not save us when it comes to eternity.

In Ecclesiastes 2: 10-11, the author (who some believe is King Solomon) says, “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure.  My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor.  Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done, and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”

Blogger Tim Challies says this about Michael Jackson:

“More than any other celebrity he embodied the “vanities” of Ecclesiastes.  He was at one time known for what he did so well and then was known for being a freak; he was at one time fantastically wealthy and then utterly broke; he was once loved and then despised.  He had it all and yet, it seemed, he had nothing.  All of it was meaningless, a chasing after the wind. . .But I hope now that he has finally found peace.  Sadly, though, his life showed no evidence that he had found the One who is peace, the one who offers true peace.  And if that is the case, the true horror of it all is that Jackson will spend all of eternity in the same twisted mind that tortured him for most of the fifty years he was given here.  Those fifty years seemed to drive him to the brink of utter insanity; the thought of an eternity in that state is too horrific to imagine.  We may like to think that death inevitably brings peace to a tortured existence.  But Scripture gives us no reason to find hope except in the One who offers hope.”

This makes me terribly sad.  Likewise, I watched Farrah Fawcett’s documentary about a month ago and although she spoke of God, she never spoke of a personally relationship with Jesus Christ nor of a peace she had knowing that she would spend eternity in heaven with her Father.  I can only hope at this point that any of these 4 talented individuals that passed away this week found peace with the Lord before they died.  Yet again, I’m reminded of how fragile life is.  Here today, gone tomorrow.

Are we ready?

While our culture has no problem discussing death on a daily basis–news tickers, sensationalized stories, crime reports, health watches, and funeral arrangement announcements–there seemsto be a shortage of news stories on what happens after death, especially from a biblical worldview.  We have become so “politically correct” that talking about God as the only way to heaven has become increadibly taboo. . .in fact, it’s seen as discriminatory.

Yet the facts remain.

In John chapter 14, Thomas asked Jesus, “‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ Jesus answered, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me’” (verses 5-6).

Some do not believe in an afterlife.  Some do not believe in God.  Many do not believe that there is only one door to heaven.  Many believe that you can get through that door by good works, rather than by simple grace (Ephesians 2:8-9).  But as Pete Briscoe points out in his book, Belief Matters, “In the end it doesn’t really matter how much you believe.  What matters is what you believe.”  He goes on to say that regardless of our sincerity about what we believe, if what we believe is false, where does that get us?

“If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

If you would like to take that step of faith, click here.