From Sampler to Sower

The Shane I Remember

I spend five years teaching Shane.  He wasn’t part of our youth ministry when I first started.  Born in 1986, he was still to young in 1995 when I first began youth ministry at the Decatur Trinity Church of the Nazarene.  But when I left Decatur in 2002, he was a long time member of our youth group and one of the kids I could count on to be at every event.  By then, I could hardly imagine a youth ministry without Shane in it.

Now almost seven years later I find I’m going to have to start imagining a world without Shane in it.

It’s still not really clear what really happened, at least not to me.  Apparently on Friday night January 16, Shane (22) went to the hospital with some breathing problems.  By 7:30 the next morning this young man was dead.

And so last Friday I climbed in my car and headed back to Decatur, IL to attend his funeral.  This was a new experience for me.  I’ve been fortunate.  After 14 years in youth ministry, this is my first funeral for someone who was or is a part of my youth ministry.  I realize that many of my colleagues have had to face tragedies like this before.  But up until now, I had not.

And so, as I made the four hour drive back to Illinois, I did a lot of  thinking and, understandably, a lot of it about Shane.  I began to realize that while I had spent five years teaching Shane, Shane had been teaching me.  Here’s what I learned:

Transformation is possible. Shane wasn’t from one of our church’s families.  When he started attending our church, he was one of our van kids.  But Shane got it.  Shane understood Christianity.  Shane understood Christ.  He understood that God wants more than just to forgive us; God desires to transform us.  And Shane pursued what Wesley would call “present inward and outward holiness.”  Shane didn’t settle just for forgiveness.  Shane experienced transformation.

Forgiveness is available. Just because Shane was pursuing holiness, that doesn’t mean he always attained it.  Shane had his share of failures and falls.  But the one thing he didn’t do was allow his failures to keep him away from Christ or His Church.  Shane lived what I talked about last week when I talked about staying close to home and continually coming back.

Joy is an option. If anyone had good reason to be depressed, it was Shane.  His life was filled with struggles, disappointments and tragedies.  There were a lot of things that could have crushed him.  Only they didn’t.  “Pressed but not crushed” could have been Shane’s life motto.  Everyone I talked to at the funeral remembered one thing about him; he was always so joyful.  He could both smile, and bring a smile, to almost any circumstance.

Prayer can be painful. I did say almost any circumstance.  There was one circumstance in particular that broke Shane’s heart.  I won’t betray his confidence with details here; suffice it to say there was someone for whom Shane was praying.  It broke his heart and he went to God to intercede for this person.  While I lived in Decatur, I was Shane’s prayer partner, and we met every week to pray for this person.

To our knowledge, that prayer was never answered.  But Shane never stopped praying.  He didn’t just pray until he felt better.  Shane prayed until things got better.  Yet in this one instance, they didn’t.

That’s when I learned how truly painful prayer can really be – when I had to look Shane in the eye and explain that no, I didn’t have any answers why.  Especially when life closed the book on those prayers and made them eternally unanswerable.  I learned from Shane that investing yourself in intercession entails making oneself vulnerable to incredible pain.  But Shane prayed anyway.

I’m still trying to come to grips with his sudden death.  Fortunately I know the life Shane lived.  I know in whom Shane believed.  And I have hope.

See?  He’s still bringing a smile to me.