These last two weeks have been a bit of a beating. I was preparing for a South Sudan meeting one Sunday and caught wind that there is a mandatory staff meeting in a few minutes and anyone on campus needed to attend this. I walked downstairs and immediately knew something was up by the looks on people’s faces. My first thought, of course, was “reorg? again?” but I knew this couldn’t be the case because it was too somber. “Oh no, Bill..” Bill Seal, Spiritual Formation Pastor down at the Dallas campus, was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer a couple months ago, and so I assumed this was what this meeting was about.
I started to prepare my heart for the impact of whatever blow was about to come my way about Bill, not knowing that that I was about to be thrown the largest curve ball ever. Matt Chandler started reading from the Word. I don’t remember what passage he was reading from, or even what it was about, all I was thinking was that he was softening us up for something big. And I will never forget how those next few words sounded: “Last night, Mo Murrey took his life…” It usually takes me a while to process things, but this cut me to the core. Immediately I started huffing and puffing (which was very odd to me) and tears just began to flow from my face for about an hour (which was always very odd to me).
Mo was not just a co-worker of mine at The Village, and not just a friend – he was a deeply loved member of my home group. He was a guy that we had been walking with closely for several months now, and we were constantly encouraged by the growth we had seen in him. He was a man that struggled for sure. It was a daily battle for him to allow Jesus to compete with the suicidal thoughts in his head, from the moment he woke up in the morning to the moment he fell sleep at night. These thoughts of inadequacies, of shame, of guilt – some days they just wouldn’t go away. He knew Jesus, and he knew Him well. He knew more than most of us his need for a Savior, and he desperately desired the Lord’s return. But in the end he gave in to a lie. Mo shared with me on more than one occasion about all of this, and how he had thought of ways to do this, but assured me it was only a struggle and that he would never act on it. I was hesitant at first because these statements are nothing to take lightly, but Mo never seemed like a guy that would actually do it. He convinced me that these were just thoughts…
I spent the first few days in shock, in horror, in pain, and in disbelief. As his home group leader there was a huge potential for feelings of regret or “I should’ve done this” or “If only I would have done this…,” but the Lord was gracious to me and protected me, as well as our home group, from all of this. Our home group took this news hard, and we mourned together for days. I can’t even begin to express how close I now feel to these men and women, and I don’t know how I could have gone through any of this without them. They feel like family to me now, and I love each of them tremendously.
Our emotions have been all over the map the last two weeks – sadness, pain, confusion, anger, compassion, nauseous, numb. I usually don’t feel much of anything as it takes a lot for things to get to me, but I feel that again the Lord was gracious to me in allowing me to feel all of these emotions. It was a weird deal to me, and I cried more in those first few days than I have in the last 5 years.
All in all, it has been a very tough 2 weeks, but the Lord has never left me. I go through waves of feelings – I’m grateful for the hearts and souls of those in our group, I’m saddened by the loss of someone I deeply loved, I’m confused as to why he didn’t reach out to us, I’m grieved at the length he went to to silence these lies, and I’m angry at the selfishness of the act and how all of us will carry this with us for the rest of our lives.
Mo left a lot of things behind – loving friends, a great church, a mourning family, and a slew of unanswerable questions. Why did you do this? Why didn’t you fight? How long have you been planning this? Didn’t you know that you were loved?
But in the end, these questions don’t matter. None of them will offer peace, and none of them will bring back my friend. The only thing that will bring comfort is knowing that the Lord saved us despite the evil we are capable of. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). He doesn’t love a future version of you; He loves you right here and right now, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.
Great post man. It really captures a lot of what we have gone through in the last two weeks and the kindness and nearness of the Lord.