They were both a small part of my life!
This past week has been one of the most difficult in my life as a pastor, and as a friend.
First, last week, as I was returning from a trip to Tupelo, I overheard on the Sheriff’s office radio channel that there was the need to set up a “landing zone” in my home town of Ecru. I figured it was something pretty serious, too serious to bother dispatch about, so I booked it back as quickly as I could (I was only about 5 minutes away). As I sped over the hill towards the downtown area, I passed my house, then two more and saw it. There at my neighbor’s were three deputy cars, a state trooper’s car, an ambulance and a host of neighbors and friends.
The grandfather, owner of the home, was on the front porch just walking back and forth crying out to Jesus. Then, out of the house came my friends, the father and mother of Russ McWhirter. I asked Brock who was it? “Brother Buster, it’s Russ!” He said with a frightened look that I’ve come to understand far too often in the Chaplain’s work. I rushed inside and there, at the end of the hallway, were the Sheriff, paramedics, the Chief Deputy, a couple of investigators……and Ru
ss.
As he and several of his cousins were helping granddad clean the house that day, he had found the hidden family pistol. No one knows exactly what happened, except that an errant round struck Russ in the face, just above his upper lip. It was a fatal blow. Russ went to meet Jesus there in granddaddy’s bedroom.
We went through a couple of days of pain, prayer and preoccupation, partly because we were waiting for one of the grandmothers to get back in country. She was away to Ireland. What a terrible plane ride back that had to have been. The other grandmother and granddad were members of my church. It had become my task that terrible day to take the message to both of them at separate times that Russ had left this life. Carolyn was at home. Nicky was at the hospital going through physical therapy. It was a grim task, but one that I actually take with honor. It is, as horrible as the actual experience can be, a great privilege for me to be the one to share such life changing news. I take the responsibility as a mission from God. I sure hope He is with me each time! I cannot envision doing such a thing alone….without Him.
Russ was a truly fine 8 year old boy. ALL boy! He loved baseball. He loved Ole Miss (The University of Mississippi). He loved my wife. She had been his second grade teacher all last year. Pat is, of course, a life long Miss. State Bulldog fan. Russ had spent the entire year trying to convert her to being an Ole Miss Rebels fan! To no avail, but that was the fun of it all. He was in love with Jesus, too, as much as an 8 year old can be. He would tell others about Jesus at school. He would scold others if their language got too ruff, or if they didn’t know the Master. He was an usher and greeter at his church, helping to take up the offering on Sunday nights. I have no doubt that Russ is in heaven tonight, kicking up gold dust and chasing after Jesus!
We laid his body to rest on a Thursday. Friday was an already planned family outing for Pat’s side of the clan. We usually take 4 days each summer to spend together, but this time we could only take one and Friday was it. As I sat there, almost mummified all afternoon, Pat looked over and asked, “Are you alright?”. I was “grief” worn. I had heartache hangover. I didn’t really want to be there, but I was for the family.
Then, at about 3:30 that afternoon, my cell rang. It was Neal Davis, my sheriff from Pontotoc county. Neal calling me in the middle of a Friday afternoon couldn’t be good, I thought. Maybe he was just checking up on me. I mean, it was the day after the funeral; a hard funeral at that. And he had been deeply involved in the entire week’s events.
But no. He was calling with the unthinkable. “I just thought I would give you a call and let you know that I’m taking J.J. Jasper and his wife to the hospital. Their little boy was hurt real bad in an accident, a go cart or dune buggy style vehicle.” I asked as discreetly as I knew how, hoping they wouldn’t overhear; “Is he 10-7?” Police code for “dead”! Crude, I know, but I just had to know. It had already been a horrible week. Had it happened again? “Uhh, I, I, I don’t know….” Neal cryptically answered. This I could interpret. Either he was dead or there wasn’t much hope. “Tell them I’m almost all the way to Batesville, but I’m on my way…..and we’re all praying!’
I had gone to the family gathering, about an hour away from our home, on the motorcycle. That’s my way of unwinding, of having powerful, conversational prayer times. But I needed to be back there with JJ and Melanie NOW. I booked it again, this time knowing that a child had been hurt, most likely fatally. It took me only about 45 minutes to make the usual hour or so trip back to my house where I switched to my car for the rest of the trip. A friend called in route to the hospital and said that they were no longer there.
The child had died and they were headed home.
Cooper Jasper was 5 years old. He, like Russ, had fallen in love with Jesus, making a public profession of his personal faith in Christ at the age of four. Cooper was an indescribable character! How delightful he was. Everyone who knew him loved him. He lit up the room. He had earned a yellow belt in karate (he’d just turned 5, remember!) and yet had just discovered that he loved baseball more. Why? He told his mom that he liked the way his cleats sounded when he walked across the sidewalk!
He and my long time radio buddy, JJ, his dad, had been riding in a two seater go cart. Cooper was strapped in and there was a roll bar on the cart. JJ wasn’t driving recklessly. But after an afternoon of fun, as they were going to call it a day and head back to the house, Cooper said, “Punch it dad!” JJ said that even on a straight and level section of the driveway, the go cart suddenly rolled over on JJ’s side. He thought nothing of it. I mean, Cooper was strapped in, it had a roll bar and it rolled on JJ’s side. As he got up, he asked, “You OK buddy?” There was no answer. He looked over and saw blood running out of Cooper’s nose! He unsnapped the seat belt, grabbed him up and ran all the way back to the house where he began to administer CPR. But it was too late.
The similarities of these two deaths are a bit unsettling to me. Both were boys; both under the age of ten; both had mothers named Mellanie; both had dads that are lay preachers; both had sisters, no brothers; both were taught the last year of school by a pastor’s wife; and both were friends of mine!
Brock and Mellanie are Godly people who serve the Lord with their lives. Brock is a lay called preacher and is preaching most weekends somewhere. JJ has been a part of Christian broadcasting for the last 25 years, being the morning “man” on American Family Radio for most of those years. He also has a ministry as a Christian comedian and travels many weeks to churches and events all over the country and has produced both DVD’s and a couple of books. Both were the kind of families that make you wonder and ask great big ole “WHY” when something like this happens! Both are hurting deeply tonight.
I ask you to pray for JJ and Melanie Jasper and their three little girls, and for Brock and Mellanie McWhirter and their little Madison. Of course, I also ask that you lift up often their grandparents and other close family members. I assure you, there’s plenty of pain to go around.
As a minister and as a friend, I was asked, “Why?” quite often this past week. I have no answer to that question because we see through a glass dimly now. But, the ONLY answers are to be found in God’s Word. So it was there that I found, “It is APPOINTED to man to die…after that the judgment”, Hebrews 9:27. We ALL have an APPOINTMENT with this thing called death. It is one appointment that none of us will miss, nor will any of us be late for it.
Russ had his appointment on Monday. Cooper had his Friday.
I’m really praying for JJ and for Russ’ granddad, the one who owned the firearm. They both feel personally responsible. But they are NOT responsible! I tried to comfort them with an illustration. I said, “If you had been carrying those boys across the yard on a pillar of feathers, and their appointed time had come, they would have still died. There’s nothing you could have done to prevent this!” I’m not so sure it helped, but it was, for me, a principle based upon what I know the Scripture teaches.
It should make us all hug our children and grandchildren a little longer each night. And our spouses. And GOD. My message last Sunday was about the two things that winds up being the most important things in life when times of crisis comes. When something like the death of a loved one occurs, we tend to run to our relationship with God and our relationship with our families. God and Family. The two most important things in the world! Period! And yet, these are the very two things that satan is working feverishly to destroy in this country we live in.
God and Family.
Get right with GOD! You never know when you will meet Him. PS 139 says that all of our days were written in His books before the first one of them came to be. Our days are indeed numbered. We have an appointment with death for God has our last day, our last moment on this earth marked out in His books.
Get right with your family. Love your family. Chris Christian used to sing a song, “Love them while you can”. You never know when the book which contains their last day might demand an appointment.
Russ and Cooper will be missed…..here. Now. But, as King David said about his child that died, “He cannot come to me, but I can go to him!” If you know the Jesus that got them to heaven, when your appointment happens, you might just see them, too.
I mean, after you stop absolutely jazzing out on Jesus for awhile.
