July 25, 2008

From: Gary West
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 5:47 PM
Subject: Reality

I see the blue lights strung out for the full length of my view.
They flash blue, a blue of caution, a blue that would be pretty in
another use.
I instinctively slow while mother and wives inhale and openly sob.
I bring the truck to a halt short of the scene.
Thinking, maybe it is better that I see it alone, see it first.
I jump out and begin to jog ahead.
Rounding the wrecker, I see the totaled remains of a mans truck, a
black truck that held my very heart.
My future, the sons of my plans.
The fathers of my grandchildren.
The backbone of every effort was represented by that battered
truck.
I asked "where are the boys?" A passerby just pointed a finger
straight up, and said "gone"
That is not the way I would have written the script.
That is not the manner that I would have called them home.
Is this a test?
Do I dare think that my maker is not concerned about me or my
reaction.
The man realized that I was more than another passerby and sends me
down the road a bit to talk to a state trooper.
He confirms, I look at the roadway and the biggest guilt of my
existence sets down squarely on my shoulders.
I see two beautiful, wonderful, graceful, young wives. I see a
mother that has lost the first born, the apple of her eye.
She is stunned, they are crushed. It is a scene that I will never
forget.
I gather them up and pray, for peace, for understanding, for His
covering.
I know that I will never understand why we had to go up, why we had
to "find the boys", and then end up at the scene.
I have determined that I don't understand anything.
I am without understanding.
I am at the point of giving up on understanding.
I have lived the best I am able.
Now I find myself in a challenge mode.
My faith is challenged by my mind, by these circumstances.
I know that God is real. But now I wonder if my service to Him
means anything. Is it really important to Him.
This event, this robbery, this hateful horrible theft is more than I
can stomach.
Is this the way my heart is measured, to be busted with bent metal,
bruised with uprooted trees and then sliced up with doubt?
I cannot look others in the eye and give the expressions of faith
that I once did. Is this the path to a permanent slide?
Am I relegated to be a marginal Christian, thin as paper. One that
is so busted that my proclamations of His love are foreign to me.
I am not worried about failing to be called a Christian but I
wonder why the effort to stay as much in His will as I did.
Because if I was indeed pleasing Him then what do I think of this
event?
If I wasn't pleasing Him.., I don't believe it is possible (for
me).
So Satan is toying with me.
He is using all the words I have read and repeated to hammer me.
All the promises, all the words of God that I expressed to my
children.
Now I am old, and broken hearted.
I am not leaving God but I can't help but feel that he has left me.
Abandoned me at 9:40pm on the 30 of May, 2008.
I don't know what to do, so I just exist. I exist in the reality of
death, the reality of loneliness.
The reality of a busted formula, a flawed equation.
I don't think that God is impressed with fakes, I have always tried
to be real.
Now I am faced with harsh reality....

Don't worry, I am just in a pit!

Gonna get out,
Gary