Inspire, Summer 2004

Inspire 19 It was a warm, sunny, brilliant day on June 6, and what better way for a bunch of sharp, fun-loving Christian girls to celebrate the freshness of being newly minted high school seniors than to go to the Lake Michigan beach. Later in the day, the girls left the beach and headed for the cottage of a classmate. While there, the family let them ride their jet skis and made sure the kids had plenty to eat. As always, Melissa had a grand time. When she was with her many remarkable friends, life was thoroughly enjoyable. And one other thing took place when the girls went to the cottage — the boys joined them, and for Melissa that meant her boyfriend, Jordan, was there. Jordan and Melissa were, as some of her friends would say, the model couple. Jordan treated Melissa like a queen, and Melissa was the light of Jordan’s life. They were good for each other, it was clear. They knew how to be good friends in the right way. As Jordan once told me, “Mr. Branon, Melissa’s not just my girlfriend, she’s my best friend.” At 8 p.m., Melissa called home on her cell phone. “I am having so much fun!” she told her mom. “We went jet-skiing. It was really cool!” She told her mom that she would be leaving at 9 p.m. to come home. “Be careful,” Sue told her, as moms always do. An hour later, Jordan and Melissa climbed into Jordan’s red Honda for the 35-minute trip back to Grand Rapids. As he always did — as per my request — he made sure she had her seatbelt fastened. At 9:10, Jordan stopped at a stop sign on a country road leading toward home. He looked to the right, and he looked to the left. He started across the intersection. What Jordan did not see, however, was that there was a fifth road at this junction — a road on which the traffic did not have to stop. And on this fifth road, another teenage driver was heading toward her home. Jordan had made it more than halfway through the intersection when he saw a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye. In that flash of time, everything would change for our family. In that single second on what had been a brilliant late spring day, darkness flooded our lives. Warmth was replaced by the cold reality of unrelenting pain. Indeed, in that instant, our precious daughter’s life was placed forever in God’s hand. The oncoming car struck Melissa’s side of Jordan’s car, and in one horrible, grinding moment, she was gone. One second she was with Jordan — the next, with Jesus. A celebration of the best things in life — Christian friends, a good education, the beauty of nature, true love, and a bright future — had become a nightmare from which we can never awake. A lifetime of trust in God was tested in ways we could never imagine. In that tiny speck of time, joy was replaced with indescribable despair. For the rest of this life, we would have to go on without our beautiful, precious daughter. Jordan’s car was demolished in the accident, and he was airlifted to a Grand Rapids hospital, where his injuries were treated. He survived the accident physically, but he now wears the inner scars of a lost friendship and the gnawing guilt of responsibility. And for our family, a peaceful night at home awaiting Melissa’s return was turned into an ongoing fog of sorrow. Beginning with frightened phone calls from Melissa’s kindred spirit friends who were afraid something had gone horribly wrong, we slowly began to grasp the awful reality of death. When the mom of the family who owned the cottage got on the phone and could only blurt out the words, “Dave, I’m sorry. I’m so very, very sorry,” I knew we had passed from life to death. I knew nothing would ever again be as it was. We would never watch Melissa play softball or volleyball for her high school and AAU teams. We would never share another vacation or even a Sunday meal. We’d never be able to sit and talk about life and the future. We would never again hear her pull her ancient Beretta with the fuzzy steering wheel covers and the zebra-skin seat covers into the driveway, rush through the door, and shout, “Hey, I’m home.” I would never hear her tell me that she was stronger than I was. I would never again do throw- downs — a crazy exercise she did for volleyball — with her again. I would never be able to walk into her sunflower- decorated bedroom and kiss her lovely face goodnight. No graduation. No wedding. Nothing. Suddenly, it was over. Our shy little girl, who had grown from a tot who feared everything and everyone into a vibrant young woman who made sure everyone was accepted, was gone. Fifteen hundred people at the funeral home paid homage to this lovely young woman. Twelve hundred mourned with us at the church the next day. But no one could say anything that could rescue our broken hearts. What do you do when it appears that God has made such a horrible mistake? How can it be that this remarkable Christian teenager, who brought joy to everyone and who had so much to offer, had to be taken when so many others are wasting their lives chasing foolishness and evil? How do parents, whose lives are so intertwined in helping, nurturing, guiding, and loving their children, exist when one- quarter of their hearts are ripped away? What does the future hold when it is suddenly slammed shut by a wall of sadness? Two years now we have had to wake up to this new reality each morning. What have we discovered through it all? What have we learned, and what does it all mean? First, let us go back to Paul Dixon’s words at Julie’s graduation. Indeed, in a new and unwanted way, we understand that God is absolutely sovereign. As parents, we so much wanted to protect our children, and we did everything we could to keep them from harm’s way. However good and right those actions are, the truth remains that Melissa’s life on this earth lasted exactly as long as God had ordained that it would. In Psalm 139:16, we are reminded that the days of our lives are pages written in God’s book. Melissa’s book was so much shorter than we wanted it to be. Over the past two years, we have had countless conversations about God’s sovereignty with many people. It’s a topic that has captured our attention because we need to know that God’s activities in our lives are purposeful — that even our child’s death came from His loving hand. One of the conversations I had about it was with one of Melissa’s friends, Tara. On that