Roy Exum
I believe in “God moments,” I really do. This is to say that sometimes such extraordinary things occur it cannot possibly be happenstance and, at what most certainly was the lowest point of Crissie Smith’s life, one of these miraculous moments occurred. What’s more, I am getting ready to prove it.
Crissie is the beautiful wife of Bill Moore Smith, the much-loved physician, and Friday a week ago their lives were changed forever when their youngest son, Kelly, was swept into the Pacific Ocean. A freak wave hit the Oregon shoreline, where Kelly and his friends were standing. Called a “sneaker wave,” these come without warning, are filled heavy with sand, and affirm the mariner’s proverb, “Never take your eyes off the sea.”
I can only imagine how heart-wrenching the hours were as the phone call that Kelly had been found never came. Instead close friends rushed to support the family’s grief. The other children and the wives of those who are married, grabbed up their babies and rushed homeward into the nightmare. What has forever been a madhouse of fun, laughter and happiness was suddenly a sad house of anguish, tears and terrible sorrow.
Sometime early Saturday morning, this after what was easily the worst night of her life, Crissie had a rare moment to be alone. With unfailing faith – Kelly’s mom picked up her well-worn book of daily devotion and the ‘God Moment’ happened. Here is what the grief-stricken mother-of-six read:
* * *
I said in my haste, “I am cut off from before Your eyes.” Nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications When I cried out to You.
I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
The waters flowed over my head; I said, “I am cut off!” I called on Your name, O Lord, from the lowest pit. You have heard my voice: “Do not hide Your ear from my sighing, from my cry for help.” You drew near on the day I called on You, and said, “Do not fear!”
Will the Lord cast off forever? And will He be favorable no more? Has His mercy ceased forever? Has His promise failed forevermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies? And I said, “This is my anguish; But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.” I will remember the works of the Lord; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old.
I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living.
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Now let me tell you a little bit about the passage. It comes directly from the Bible, every word and each sentence just perfect for Crissie as she shared it with her family and, on Tuesday, with well over a hushed crowd of over 1,000 at a glorious memorial service. What makes the devotion odd is that you can’t look it up in your Bible although each word is right there.
I have a small little trove of the things that mean the most to me. When I wanted to include a copy of beautiful words that was such a comfort to the stricken Smith family, and realized the hope that each will need as they read it time and time again, I wanted it to become a keepsake of mine. This is exactly the kind of stuff that I can read on a dark night that assures me better moments are just ahead. But when I tried to find it in my Bible, I couldn’t until I cracked its code by breaking it into paragraphs.
Here is what makes this devotional so wonderfully unique. If you’ll go back to the devotional, you’ll find the first paragraph above comes from Psalms 31. The second paragraph comes from Psalms 69. The third is from Lamentations 3. The fourth from Psalms 77, and the last from Psalms 27.
Don’t you see? Some genius knitted the different scriptures together in such a glorious and amazing way that I believe is far beyond happenstance. I’ll even go farther – I believe that God with all of his glory and tenderness is the only One who could have guided the author’s research in the Bible to create the work. How else can anyone explain such an assemblage of words, each following the one before perfectly?
How can any mortal among us explain why Crissie picked out this particular book of devotions? And only the Lord will ever be able to tell us why it was “the next page” on the very day when Crissie, Bill Moore and their ever growing family would need its comfort the very most.
Life’s biggest mystery – to me – is why beautiful people like Kelly Smith die with such a bright life of promise ahead. I struggle every time a child anywhere dies of disease, a drive-by shooting, a car wreck, whatever. The only solace I can find is in the belief God needed them for a special purpose. Only when we get to heaven and hear “the rest of the story,” we will realize our grief is nothing compared to a life with the people we love for an eternity.
The worst thing any parent must endure is the death of a child – I watched my mother carefully as she soldiered on after my two brothers died. Without her monumental faith and what she shared with the rest of us, I shudder to think of how we would have handled it. She had pictures of Kinch and Franklin scattered all over the house because “the memories make me so happy.” Boy, did she teach us a lot.
As a result, her collection of “God moments” was evermore huge and, to boot, she had about a dozen absolute miracles she could cite. If you’ll ask almost any Believer they tell give you an eye-witness account about such things that are simply uncanny, unbelievable and unexplainable.
“God moments” happen all the time. Seek them out and relish them. As you can see, they are very real.
royexum@aol.com