New Normal
Have you ever found yourself drifting off during a long sermon? It could be deadly.
On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them; since he intended to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight. There were many lamps in the room upstairs where we were meeting. A young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in the window, began to sink off into a deep sleep while Paul talked still longer. Overcome by sleep, he fell to the ground three floors below and was picked up dead. But Paul went down, and bending over him took him in his arms, and said, "Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him." Then Paul went upstairs, and after he had broken bread and eaten, he continued to converse with them until dawn; then he left. Meanwhile they had taken the boy away alive and were not a little comforted. - Acts 20:7-12
I love this story and I have written about it several times over the years, focusing on the long talk or the boy being brought back from death or near death. I have even commented on how they shared a meal and then Paul continued to talk until dawn.
But this time it is the last line that I find interesting.
Meanwhile they had taken the boy away alive and were not a little comforted.
Other translations say that they were greatly comforted. After falling three floors, the boy had to be hurt. But he was alive. That had to be a great comfort, even though he may have been worse off than he was before.
When someone we love has a brush with death, it shocks our system. We are suddenly reminded of our own mortality and we don't really like such reminders, do we?
When something terrible happens to a loved one, our emotions go on a roller coaster ride. At first, we fear the worst, and then as we learn it is not that, we adjust our expectations accordingly, until we find we have to accept a new reality, a new normal.
The boy is alive, yes, but will he walk again?
We don't know how it turned out; all we know is they were comforted.
Perhaps it was part of Paul's teaching that night, after breaking bread in thanksgiving. This is what life is, he may have said, and all of us need to be ready to deal with what life brings and how life continues after the changes it brings.
The boy and his parents would have to deal with the aftermath of his fall, and the fall will be a pivotal moment in his life for all time. It was the moment everything changed.
We can never forget those moments. We can only find a way to live with them, and that, I believe, is the message for us today. Life is a series of adjustments to new normal states.
When the changes are gradual, like aging, we find them easier to accept, but when they are abrupt and radical, they remain prominent in our minds, testaments to the belief that life is not fair.
Like the family taking their boy home alive, though, shouldn't we be focusing on the positives? What a great comfort it is that he is alive.
More to come...