Gasp.

I've just finished watching "The End of the Spear," which is a documentary about Nate Saint, the Elliots, and the other three men who were killed by the Alca Indians in Ecuador.
It hits really hard. I guess a lot of people don't understand...
I watched the man who flew in and found the bodies recount the minutes of that day.
And my mind raced through many different scenarios very quickly.FOOTNOTE1

But the one that stopped my heart was tough for me to consider.
I thought of myself- that is, I viewed this from my own perspective. As though I were the man that was to fly to the sand bar and look for my friends, knowing they could be gone.
And I thought about the men that I am here at LeTourneau with. And others that have gone before me.
I thought first of Mark, of course. I let him be Jim Elliot in my mind. And then I filled in the other names with people I knew. Dan Swenson. Jonathan Tack. Brian Snyder. Maybe Shane Beans. Maybe even Stokes.
And I thought,
"What if I were the one to go find them in the jungle? Dead? Speared in the face? I couldn't bear it. I couldn't. I don't know what I would do."
And I cried a little.
As I thought about what I would want to change, I cried some more.
So I thought about what I would do, if I found them there. What I would want.

One more hug.
That's what I'd want.
I saw myself pleading--internally, against myself--for one more hug from my close buddies.
And I just about couldn't come to grips with the idea of them being gone.

That's all.




FOOTNOTE1-I'm not afraid to admit that one of my greatest fears in life is being separated from my friends. In my mind, heaven is a place where we are all reunited after an earthly life of separation. We're united with God, and united with each other. For eternity.
And it won't matter if Stokes has a baseball game that weekend- we will have an infinite number of weekends to go to Shake's or something fun like that.