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Passing on the Truth to Young People
Our Shane Moment: An Open Letter to a Young Man Turning Sixteen |
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By Pastor Richard J. Hayes Poplar Level Church of God, Louisville, KY |
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November 9, 2014
Michael,
Exactly one week before my sixteenth birthday the most tragic event of my life occurred. I grew up in Southwest Ohio and enjoyed the comfort of certainty in life. Of course, I had witnessed the occurrence of trauma. My grandfather passed at age forty-nine when I was three years old. I remember the Challenger disaster in 1986.
There were always news reports of wars, death, pestilence, and disease. However, all of these events were either third person associations or I was too young to engage in the tragedy of them. December of 1994 was different. I was heading full steam into turning sixteen, an age I couldn’t wait to claim. I was counting down the days when the days suddenly stopped and time for a moment stood eerily and coldly still.
I grew up next door to my cousins—my dad’s brother had two boys (Scott and Shane) four and two years my senior. We spent a lifetime together making memories. We slid down hills on unconventional sleds, swam in creeks, ran the neighborhood on bikes, traded baseball cards, fought like brothers, and protected each other like brothers. We loved each other so very much. Life was so sweet, innocent, and we were naïve about the pain of loss and the reality of death.
Exactly one week before my sixteenth birthday on a cold December evening, panic struck the home next to my own. My cousin—my brother—was not breathing. He had taken ill that morning, but we were none the wiser that his body was telling us something, something horrible. He died that night. I recall looking on his face before the ambulance arrived; the image haunts me yet today—painfully purple. I remain alarmed by the memory not because I fear death, but because it was the first time I ever really experienced loss.
I loved him so very much, yet my love was unable to do anything but let me serve as a bystander. Thirteen years later, I named my first born son Shane. I honored that loss in a positive way. Shane is gone, and nothing can change that. However, what I do with his loss is completely under my control. I choose to take the loss, death, hurt, pain, confusion, remorse, unfairness, and a whole host of other abstractions and turn them into motivating factors in my life.
Michael, you will be unable to control a great portion of life. Tragedy will come. Pain will be present. Reality will set in. Hurt will accompany you. Shadows will appear. How will you respond? I encourage you, when you face such conflict (whatever it may be) to allow the process to play out. Don’t avoid life’s letdowns. Realize, at times, life hurts.
However, don’t let those things define you in the negative. Let God use them for His glory. Do I believe God wanted Shane to die? Resoundingly, no! However, in the midst of his death my life has been defined as it is today.
You have reached a paramount milestone; sixteen years is a good number to celebrate. Enjoy these days. Be happy and love life. Make friends and be vulnerable. Seek God’s will and His righteous way. Don’t focus on the negative of life—though be mindful of it as a reality. Accept what you cannot change. Take the loss for what it is, and be motivated to turn that which hurts into that which produces good fruit.
At 35, I am confident you will encounter grief. Your Shane moment, if not already, will come. Young man, I implore you to live life not in spite of life’s pains, but perhaps because of life’s pains. When your Shane moment comes, remember it is only a moment, one moment that could change everything. Control what you can control. God is able; always allow Him the pleasure of such ability.
Happy sixteenth birthday, Michael!
Regards, R.J. Hayes John 3:30
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