Snapshots of a Modest Life

Is This What We Are to Strive For?

This post is in response to a comment from a dear friend of mine on the previous post.

My post was not to imply that Dr. Thompson wasn't an intelligent man, nor to be a knock on his character. On the contrary, I was fascinated by the stories that his friends could tell about him and the obvious respect they had for him. Having never really read any of his writing, I don't feel that I have a right to have an opinion about it, and I apologize if it seemed that I was making a statement on his writing; that was not my intention.

What I was trying to get at with that post was the hopelessness of life as portrayed and promoted by Rolling Stone, even a life as celebrated and successful as Dr. Thompson's. For him, it came down to a pistol and a whole lot of despair in the end. My point is best articulated in the form of a question: is this what we are to strive for?

It being Holy Week I've been thinking about who I am in Christ and the hope for the future that I have because of what He did for me on the cross 2000 years ago. While reading the various articles about Dr. Thompson, the memorial service for Dr. Bill Bright came to mind. For anyone not familiar with the name, he was the Founder and President of Campus Crusade for Christ for 50 years. Like Dr. Thompson, the last few years of his life were spent in a wheelchair; it was expected that the pulmonary fibrosis that bound him to that chair would take his life slowly, leaving him gasping for breath at the end, and as I understand it (and I’'m not a doctor, so my understanding is limited), eventually killing him by asphyxiation. By the grace of God, Dr. Bright died peacefully in his sleep. At his memorial service in Orlando, his sons wore black, but his daughter-in-law wore white in celebration of his arrival in heaven, his “"coronation day"” as a child of the King. There was of course sadness at the service, but beneath it there was hope and joy; the hope and joy that can only be found in the saving grace of Jesus Christ. The memorial service was a celebration that his life is not over, that even though his earthly body is dead, his heavenly body, a perfect body not plagued by pulmonary fibrosis, is dancing for joy on streets paved with gold.

As I read, the hope that was so prevalent at Dr. Bright’s memorial service contrasted in my mind with the epitaphs and articles written about Dr. Thompson. There was no hope, no joy; only relief that he suffers no more, and sadness that he is gone.

So I will leave you for now with a question: what are you striving for? The cover of Rolling Stone, or a walk on streets of gold?

I'll go back to being funny soon, I promise. Happy Easter.