When I was a kid I spent my summers, or at least part of my summers, in Alabama. Life was not a mile a minute of excitement. Television in the summer lacked a lot of entertainment value and for a kid who loved sports there was not much to hold my attention. MLB, NBA, Wide World of Sports...not interesting to me. Then I discovered cable. I spent a couple of nights at my aunts house and she was the first person to be so blessed within my sphere of influence. I found myself awake in to the wee hours of the morning watching all manner of weird movies and European sports...including Formula 1. Whether it was the speed, the sound, the exotic locations like Brazil, Japan or Monaco...I was hooked. Over the years I watched sporadically. Then in the late 80s a new driver came on the scene. His name was Ayrton Senna. Over the course of 161 races he finished on the podium 80 times and won 41 races. Thats an amazing record by any measurement. In 1989, Senna set a blistering record for a single lap at a course in Sazuka, Japan. 25 years later Sony, as seen in this video, commemorated the record by setting up a vast array of lamps and speakers to recreate the lap via sound and light. Its an amazing degree of effort to recognize a single event. Except there was more to it...Senna died in a racing accident 5 years after the race at Sazuka when his steering broke and he slammed head on in to a retaining wall. So 25 years after a record setting day, and 20 years after his death, his name is still inexorably linked to a sport he gave his life for...literally. If he can be remembered so strongly and mourned by so many who really didnt know him, how much more is he remembered and mourned by those who did? Pain. Grief. Depression. Mourning. All powerful emotions. All sometimes hard to understand when its a friend or loved one dealing with these feelings. The Bible commands us to mourn with those who mourn. To encourage. To lift up. To walk along side. It doesnt command us to fix the problem but be a friend, brother, sister...in Christ and like Christ...to those in need. We dont have to understand, its not necessary. In our lack of understanding we can not simply walk away from those in pain because we dont get it. There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother...That should be you...that should be me. Romans 12:10-15 NIV Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 13:42:22 +0000
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