1. Jeff, we’ve been drawn much closer together over the past year because of the experience our children were in. I’ve shared with this blog community some of the horror — along with some of the blessings that have come. Could you reflect a bit on some of the positive things you’ve seen from this tragic experience?
Our time together has been one of the real blessings to come out of this nightmare — and for me, part of the healing too. You and I always said we wanted to spend more time together somehow, though I don’t think this is the way either of us would have chosen to begin doing that. Still, it’s funny how catastrophe can open our eyes to a new way of seeing, so that some vital things which tend to get laid aside in favor of “urgent routines” make their way to the top of the list, demanding attention. Conversation, relationship, community — why does it often take crisis and loss to remind us how much more important those things are than many of the things we misspend our energies towards every day?
Back to your question. Amara was in the accident because she traded seats with a friend during the last rest stop. For some reason, she and her two friends weren’t able to ride in the same vehicle together. Amara was assigned to ride in the car her mom was driving — not the average 8th-grader’s dream youth group road-trip, but she endured. The other two girls were together. As an act of friendship, one of them (Sage Nielson) gave up her place so that Amara could be with the other girl for a while: Beth Johnston. Then the accident happened. The seat-swap created some confusion back in Abilene about just who was involved in the accident but it also stirred deep emotions between Sage and Amara.
When Amara was finally brought to the hospital, she looked awful and was in a lot of pain. But she had only two things on her mind and she kept talking about them, for as long as she was conscious: 1) the people who had helped her and prayed with her on the roadside; and 2) she asked how everybody involved was doing — including Sage. Once Amara and Sage finally got to see one another, late the next day, the scene was incredible. “I am so sorry that you took my place,” Sage said. “It should have been me!” At the same time, Amara was blurting out, “I am so glad that we traded places, so you didn’t have to go through this!” They were both weeping. Come to think of it, some other people in the room may have been crying too. Each was ready to give herself up for the other and in the middle of the horrific pain of that time of broken bodies and death they knew very well what they were saying. The image of Christ was making an appearance, right there among the cookie bouquets and blood transfusions.
Has anything positive come from this? Yes. For instance, we got so many cookie bouquets that we had to borrow extra freezer space… 
But seriously — in this experience we have met God. You can tell whether a sure-enough, for-real encounter with God has happened based on how the event transforms people’s lives. You often can’t know at the moment. You certainly can’t tell God showed up just because there are deep emotions, or great inner experiences, or amazing coincidences, or miraculous provisions, wonderful as all those may be. Sometimes we let ourselves get fooled into thinking that those are the marks of a God-thing, but he’s deeper than those things. It’s about how the event causes people’s lives to be reordered according to the image of Christ — that’s how you can see God’s hand. It usually takes some time; time to see the effects, time to reflect on the event and the aftermath. More than a year later, I can look back and see how that this event has evoked the image of Christ. Amara and Sage — the Good Samaritans on the roadside — the people who sacrificed and mobilized to help the Bourlands and all the families involved in the wreck — the Highland Church coming together for service, prayer, and healing — cooperation and compassion between denominations in Abilene — the tangible outpouring of love from people all over the place, including so many regulars on your Blog. And in Amara I have seen ongoing transformation. She is more responsive to people in need. She has volunteered her time to help the local Children’s Miracle Network — including doing spots on TV and radio (against every 14-15-year old’s instincts..). She thinks about creative ways to use her money to help others. She’s on her way to Mexico this summer to put her aching body to work for others. I am proud of her.
Seeing all this in the aftermath has renewed my conviction that the Way of Jesus is a good Way. And I am totally convinced that our family and our church met God that day, because of the way his character and heart have revealed themselves in the midst of it all. Many people impacted by this event have been formed according to Christ. To me — that’s positive.
2. You’re a dad and a theologian. You’re bound to have heard people try to explain “why this wreck happened.” Can you help us think Christianly about this?
Tough question. After all, if we met God that day and if rich blessings have come out of the event, is that why it happened? Who am I to say? Maybe I should stop there. But, here goes…
Early on Amara started getting hit with many different explanations for her suffering — everything from “accidents happen,” to elaborate commentaries that confidently interpreted every detail of the experience as directly orchestrated by God for very clear and specific purposes. She handled the explanations fairly well. I think deep down she sensed that people were genuinely trying to be helpful and encouraging in a faithful way. But more than once, having to grapple with some of the explanations produced tears and painful conversations as she tried to fit these explanations into what she knew from the Bible and her experience. Some of them just wouldn’t fit. Some of them required a God who was totally absent; others required a God who spent a lot of his time inventing new ways for people to suffer unfairly. One evening she visited with me about how hard it was to see God as someone who would deliberately take away a mother’s young son, as in her accident — or to cause the suffering of a child who was being abused by a parent over many years, as in some cases she’d heard about. Yet some of the explanations from older Christians she admired required that kind of God, and it was difficult to swallow. You can imagine that we were having different conversations than we’d had before.
It was a reminder to me that theology matters, because some theology is toxic, no matter how well-meaning. It often becomes toxic when some truth about God is magnified to become the only truth about God, at the expense of some other truths that are just as biblical and just as important. But maybe I didn’t need to worry about it so much, since over the last year my teenaged daughter has become quite a practicing theologian. She didn’t just swallow everything she heard, but reflected deeply, talking it through with her parents and siblings. And she heard the reflections of people like you and others, that helped her find ways to think Christianly.
I have heard that when some of her peers in her High School Bible class or Huddle are quick to blithely give God credit for various tragedies that occur, on the presumption that he has some good purpose we just can’t see, she now tends to be one of those who says, “God didn’t do those things. But he wants to bring good out of them.” That has become her answer to the problem, I think. And it has become important to her that it be said — that well-intended, pious-seeming, but overly simple explanations for tragedy not be allowed to stand unchallenged. I think she knows that way more is at stake than the momentary comfort one-sided answers bring.
Her answer reminds me of Jesus with the man born blind (Jn 9), or the time he commented on the worshiping Galileans that Pilate slaughtered and the tower of Siloam that collapsed and killed people (Lk 13). There were obviously people who could tell you why those awful things happened and what God was up to in causing them. They wanted Jesus to deliver his view on that question but, as usual, Jesus won’t play their game. Instead, he redirects people’s thinking away from the business of sorting out why those things happened to focus on the significance of how people respond in the events’ aftermath, to participate in the ongoing work and glory of God. You see that all over scripture — the Bible is much more modest about determining who caused what than we tend to be, but it’s also very clear in stressing that the important thing to focus on is who we are to be in the midst of tragedy and pain.
I like Amara’s answer — though our family doesn’t have it all figured out, to be sure. The pain is still real, physically and spiritually. Amara’s youth ministers have learned that when Bible class includes some presentation of suffering or need she is likely to be one who asks the troublesome question, “Why does God let that happen to people, anyway?” We’re still asking the questions, some days more painfully than others. But over time, my answers to your first question are becoming our answer to this one too. “Did God cause this? Why did God do this?” soon receded, as a bad question. “Where is God at work in this now? Who does he want us to be in this?” came to the forefront as the question the Bible actually sanctions and that our experience showed us was being answered right in front of us. In the midst of experiences of death and pain God brings resurrection in hope and healing and his presence. That seems a Christianly way of thinking, to me. At least, it’s something I’ve been learning from my teenage daughter — along with which lip glosses are best, though I’m not finding that wisdom to be as helpful.
I don’t know that I’ve really answered your questions, but thanks for letting me share my rambling thoughts with you and your Blog community. It helps. Their prayers and messages have meant so much to us over the last 15 months. And thanks for being my faithful conversation partner during this time.
