iPandora

Andree Seu, a favorite author of mine in World Magazine, encountered what we might at first blush call a freak accident or narrow escape but which God considers another chance to glorify Him:

Lawrence and Nancy’s 3-year-old son fell out of his second-story bedroom window

I’ve been dealing with the loss of a good friend and did not immediately connect the significance of God’s work reaching across these two incidents because Lawrence and Nancy’s son, Sammy, lived. But God did. And speaking through Andree to me He revealed even the smallest and most indirect part of His plan is so very perfect:

…(Y)ou might ask why, if God is so amazing, He didn’t stop Sammy from falling out in the first place. There you got me. All I know is that people were mobilized to pray and cook and watch Matty, and so it seems that God was giving lots of folks an opportunity to love in ways they wouldn’t have otherwise. And that’s the best I can do with that.

Matthew Kelly
December 14th, 1984 to August 20th, 2008

A man who loved God and sought to bring glory to Him.

…and he wore cool hats.

A request:
A good friend of mine and a closer friend of my wife, Matt Kelly, shot himself in the head in what appears to have been a freak accident.

He is not expected to live.

Please pray with myself and others around the world for the peace and comfort of God to be upon all the Kelly family (father, mother, and sister) and upon the friends (including my wife) who are gathered as they remove his life support in the near future and prepare for what is very likely to be a funeral soon.

He is a young man, recently graduated from Moody Bible Institute. He was planning on returning to Moody for his graduate work in the next years and then going on to the mission field in Romania.

God is always in control. He is the One who lays out our life before us and His thoughts and plans are usually incomprehensible to us in the current moment.

But we His children can trust Him to continue to, as He always has, work all things together for the good of those called according to His purposes, and to His glory.

UPDATE: The shooting was accidental. Evidence at the scene seems to indicate the gun was discharged away from Matt and the bullet only struck him after it ricochetted off of the fireplace.