Shattered

It has obviously been awhile since I last posted. So much has happened in the last 2 weeks of my life that one blog post would never be able to do it justice. Life was cruising along when all of the sudden the brakes came on and I literally felt like I was thrown from a moving vehicle.
On Thursday November 19 I was at Chuck E. Cheese attending Lucy Sloan's 3 year old birthday party. It was a normal night. I was playing with small children and eating cupcakes and hanging out with friends. The night wound down and everyone left except the Sloan's and myself. Typical. It was upon walking out of the door of Chuck E. Cheese that my world was shattered. I received word that my younger brother John, had ended his own life. He was 16 a junior in high school, and absolutely in love with life and Jesus. The next weeks events all become blurred together as one could expect in a crappy situation like this. That night I stayed with the Sloan's and was surrounded by many friends trying to understand. I kept repeating over and over to myself that it wasn't real.

The next morning Leslie and I caught the first flight out of Asheville headed for Texas. To be quite honest I'm not sure if I would have made it home in one piece without her. The next few days involved lots of tears and absolute crappy events with lots of nights where I cried myself to sleep in Leslie's arms. The weight of the darkness was great.

I am still trying to grasp the situation. While home I hugged my family and cried alot, trying to understand some part of it all. I will never have most of my questions answered and that has been one of the hardest parts about the whole situation.

My entire family came into town. For a week we had people streaming through our house offering their condolences and bringing mountains of food. Everyday there was a stack of cards in the mail at least 6 inches thick from people all over the United States. The entirety of Boerne Champion High School came to a grinding halt on Friday. The immensity of the effect of my brother's death on the community and with people all across the US was astounding. At his memorial service there were almost 1600 people. We are talking about a 16 year old teenage boy not some old man who lived a long life and had lots of time to touch hundreds and thousands of people. But you can be sure that he was no ordinary teenage boy. Everybody loved John Noll. He didn't have a mean hair on his body. He was an avid outdoorsman, and the hardest worker I have ever known. He loved living his life for the One who created him. He loved to love people. There were no favorites with John.
This is why there will never truly answers to the questions of Why?

I am leaving so much out but I am still trying to figure out where to begin myself. One minute I'm fine and the next I'm in a puddle of tears.
But in the few days that I have had since returning to Asheville I have been convinced of a few things. One is that my brother was taken from me by powerful a powerful evil force.
The other is that even though that evil force was victorious here on earth, it has not power over John now. He is free.
One very important thing is that Satan saw my crazy awesome brother, John Noll, as a threat to his plan to smother this planet in darkness. So much of a threat that he felt as though he had to take John out of the picture by convincing to go and be with Jesus early. As crazy as that sentence sounds it is the only explanation I can even piece together right now. Even though he succeeded in removing John's physical body, no one will forget his big heart and crazy attitude for serving and loving people. I don't know about anyone else but I do not know many 16 year old boys quite like John Noll.

The journey has only begun and grieving his loss will take a very long time. Please be in prayer for me and my family as we try to navigate this new path. We are not alone and through all of this crap there is hope. Hope because I knew my brother and his heart and that one night, although horrible, was not the definition of John Noll. There is hope because I am surrounded by people who love me, care about me, and are pushing and shoving to lift me up toward Christ. There is Hope because I now nothing can separate me from the love of Christ.

Thank you to everyone who has been walking along side my family during this time. We can not get through this without you pointing the way to Christ for us. I am so thankful for the Sloan Family for taking me in and never leaving my side. I'm not quite sure what I would be doing right now if not for them.
I am blessed.

One thing I had to do while I was in Texas was pick a verse to go on the back of the memorial service bulletin. I had the hardest time even thinking straight to pick one meaningful but somehow in my desperation I stumbled upon this:

"For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

~Romans 8:36-39

I also want to leave you with a song. My sister, Mary, sent it out in an email tonight to several people and it pretty much spells out John Noll. It is called Requiem by M. Ward and it was written about a much older man, but at heart, John Noll was an old man, strong, sweet, and full of life.

I'm going to miss you little brother.