Lent 27

I was thinking of my friend and mentor Chad today. I'm posting a reflection I wrote almost two years ago, not long after Chad's death. After 9 months working in the hospital, I find some of my reflections about the miracle of using someone's death for something/someone else a little more troubling than I did while still in seminary, but here it is anyway.

They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah will have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.” But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh”; for she was afraid. He said, “Oh yes, you did laugh.” (Genesis 18:9-15 )


I was reading this passage and thinking on the surrounding Genesis narrative when I was reminded of a story a dear friend and mentor once told me. About 14 years ago, Chad needed a heart transplant. He was on the donor list, patiently waiting. The doctors in the upstate of South Carolina wanted him to stay close to the hospital because his worsening condition was moving him closer and closer to the top of the list. He and his wife had a lake cabin not too far from town so they had decided to go out there to stay while they waited, hoped, and prayed. Then the call came. A young man had been in a car accident. They had a heart for Chad. Chad told me that while he knew he needed the heart and should have been excited, he was upset by this. He told me he went out to the lake and prayed. The scene he described and picture he painted was beautiful and I couldn’t do it justice to retell it here, but the general point is, he felt like he was meeting directly with God in that moment. He prayed to God saying that he wanted to live, but he didn’t want to live this way. He didn’t want to take the heart of some poor teenager who’d had to die so he could live. He cried out to God for a miracle. Like Sarah, he’d forgotten to put all his trust in God. He’d forgotten that God often provides in ways we may not expect or understand. Then, in the silence of that moment, he realized that God had given him a miracle already. That young man was going to die anyway. But God had provided a miracle. Doctors had learned to give life where there was once only death. Organ donation is anonymous so Chad didn’t know the boy’s name. All he knew was that the boy was the one God would use to save him. Chad began to feel peace about the whole situation and was able to accept the heart that would keep him alive for another 14 years.

He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” (Genesis 15:5)

Chad was a staunch advocate for organ donation. He was a Methodist minister who connected that miracle moment to his faith and preached about it from the pulpit. He wrote about it. He retold that story over and over and over. He even went on radio shows to talk about it. On one such radio show not long after the transplant, he was retelling the story. He had described it just as he told me and said that a young teenage boy had been killed in a car accident in Spartanburg and had given him life. He gave the date of the accident and transplant. A couple of days later, Chad received a phone call. A woman had been listening to the radio show, and because of the details he’d given, she realized that Chad was talking about her son. She called the radio station and got his contact information and called him. They connected. She was grateful to learn of the way in which God had used her son to give life. She became very close to Chad’s family, visiting and staying in touch. She became a loved member of the family.

Do you believe in miracles? Do you recognize the hand of God guiding your life? I really believe that God’s love and God’s grace will have far-reaching effects on our lives. I believe in the body of Christ, my Christian family. I pray that one day I may be a miracle for one of them, one of you. I thank God for the miracle that you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, have been and will be for me. The grace of God is upon us, working in us just as it did for Abraham and Sarah and Chad and countless others. There is nothing too great for our God.