Fuquay Varina Baptist Church
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Youth Minister and his wife-Joe & Kim Monk
AUDIO VERSION-click on
http://fvbaptist.org/audio/sermons/JoeAtStomp.mp3
Joe: " Y'all doin' alright? I can't turn my neck. It stays in one position all the time. I'm going to try to get through this tonight as best I can. I'll be honest with you, I'm tired. I've had a long day. I'm not used to going through days without sleeping 3 or 4 hours right now. I am glad to be back. Tonight I want to share with you what I've learned so far through this little journey that I'm on right now and I think, hopefully, Kim will come up here and share some things because it's not something that I go through alone. My whole family is affected by it. My 3 year old has decided that I'm the coolest daddy in the world all of the sudden. Prior to the accident he didn't really care about me much and now he wants to be with me all the time. When you're away from home for 3 weeks in a hospital room it's kind of tough on the kids, but you know God's good and there are things that He's taught me that hopefully you can learn from. 
I wish I could walk around. I'm not used to sitting down speaking but, we'll do the best we can. Inside your program there are some lyrics to a song and we're going to get to that at the end. I want to share with you a little about that song and what it means to me.
The first thing that really struck me is that you never know when life's going to change. Those of you on the ski trip might remember, that just prior to me going out skiing we were talking about Philip. And for those who are not aware, Philip busted his head the day before I busted my neck. And I was giving an update and the last thing I said as I walked out was that you never know whether you're going to live or die; you never know if you're going to make it off the mountain. I said that "I don't know if I'll make it off the mountain." Now little did I know that 20 minutes later they would be carrying me off the mountain. Life changes that fast. I was stopped on the edge of the slope and the snow and ice just gave away. And I went down about 50 feet head first. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I'm not sure which, I covered my head because of what happened to Philip which caused my neck to ball up, which caused me to break the C5 vertebrae in my neck. I've learned that most people who break that never walk again; lose most of their fine motor skills; and a lot of them are paralyzed from the neck down. When I hit the bottom I was paralyzed. I could move my arms, but I couldn't find my legs. I didn't know where they were. It wasn't until the ski patrol guy skied down and hit me in the back of my head and spun me 180 degrees around that I found my legs. They were pointing up hill at that point. Laying there all these thoughts go through your mind about what's going on and you know one of the things that was really striking to me was the sense of peace I had. I wasn't sure; I seemed to think in my own mind that I was really calm; that I was in control; that I knew what was going on. Susan was with me; I asked her in the hospital if I was calm and she said "Yeah, you were really calm. You were the calmest one there." There was a sense of peace. I'm laying there and I didn't know what was going on, but you know one of my biggest concerns at that point?....Who's going to tell my wife? I was concerned about her because she was in Shelby NC and she was 5-6 hours, no wait, 8 hours, 9 hours away. Who was going to tell her. I was concerned about my boys. And I was concerned about how our students were going to get home. In fact, when I came out of surgery, I was fighting the doctors trying to get a message to Benjie or whoever to tell them how to get ya'll home. That was about the most combative I became.
It was an incredible peace and I was sitting there on my back, knew I couldn't move and I looked up and saw the stars. Those of you who went on the trip remember how cloudy it was, how overcast pretty much all day , it was foggy. But at that moment I could look up and see the stars. And one of the things I realized was that I'm not real big. But the one who's in charge is. I remember coming down the hill on the back of the artic cat rescue vehicle with Josh the ski patrol guy. I am the first person in the 2005/2006 ski year to be taken off in the artic cat. As I was laying across the back of the vehicle, I just looked at him; he was freaking out and I said, "Have you looked at the stars yet? I mean, have you just looked up? I mean, it's incredible." And you know, it was just an unreal thing the peace that God gave me. Sometimes when you get in those situations, if you rely on God, He's going to give you peace that you don't, I don't understand it. I mean, by all accounts I should've been freakin' slam out. I couldn't find my legs, I couldn't move my legs, I could move my arms, but I couldn't do anything with my hands. And yet God gave me a peace.ANOTHER THING I'VE LEARNED through all of this, is that God never wastes a hurt. That's one of the things out of The Purpose Driven Life that we've kind of been dealing with over the last 2 or 3 years. God never wastes a hurt. I don't know exactly how God's going to use this in my life; there are certain things I see. But I know that, at the very least, there was a student from Wake Chapel that on the way home was asking Benjie about this whole thing and about the fact that you can go through a ski trip and have a great time and maybe not make it home. Or you can come to STOMP and you can have a great time with your friends but maybe you die on the way home. And so I know for at least one person who was on the ski trip God kind of used my getting hurt to impact their life. God never wastes a hurt. This is one of the things I trust in regardless of what happens to me.
Let me tell you what my deal is right now. I'm still in outpatient physical therapy for the next, God knows how long. Just so you know, they took a 3 inch chunk of bone out my hip. My C5 fractured in the front...shattered in the front. It's fractured up the back. I've got a titanium plate in my neck where they took my hip and rebuilt my neck. My spinal cord was pinched. Which is why I have trouble using my fingers. But it wasn't snapped. Had it snapped I wouldn't be here right now. But I've got a long way to go. They say that it could take 3 months to a year before I get whatever I'm going to get back in my hands. They may come back 95% and they may come back 30%. I don't know. But I remember, I can't remember, Wendell, where it was, if it was when I was in Elkin or before when I went into surgery, maybe I'm dreaming, but did I tell you I'd be alright if I was paralyzed? I'm thinking I did. You know, I was at a point with the peace that if I couldn't walk again that was fine....God was still going to use it. I would be lying if I didn't say that I'm impatient right now. And I wish my hands worked the way that they used to. I get tired of not being able to pick up little things. Or not being able to write. I have to use a really big pen to hold onto and I had idiot forks-the handles were big around to hold on to. And I'd be lying if I said I'm not impatient. I certainly want to get that back and I'm driven to get it back. But, realistically, I may not. But, you know what? It's OK. Because God's bigger than that. God's bigger than me. And that's just part of the peace He gives.
ANOTHER THING I LEARNED was that we can minister under any circumstance that we're in. While in surgical intensive care in WV the afternoon after my surgery they brought in a guy who had gotten drunk and stepped out in front of a car. And one of the things I remember was them trying to get this guy to respond. I mean I was already responding and I was talking to people; I was awake. And they couldn't get this guy to respond. He couldn't move his hands; couldn't move his legs and he was probably going to be a quadriplegic for the rest of his life. And I started realizing really early that there are a lot of people a lot worse off than I am. While I was in the hospital in WV there was a coal mine accident. One of our nurse's next door neighbor was one of the miners that died. There was another nurse there who was engaged to the son of one of the guys that died. And there were a lot of people hurting a lot worse than I was.
There was one girl that none of the nurses wanted to go in her room. She was in her early 20's and when you went in her room she would throw things at you because she was not going to get any better. She was not going to walk out and she was frustrated. And so the nurses would be like "Alright, it's your turn to go. She's going to throw something at you." Hopefully it's not anything very big. And so I realized early on that there were a lot of people worse off than I am.
I don't know why, I mean this isn't a "Joe" thing. I think some people have made it out to be, that I'm some super-spiritual thing. It's a "God" thing. But somebody called wanting to know about sending flowers . Well, I'm not a flower person. I'm sorry. They die. And that's all I need; dead wilted flowers in my hospital room to cheer me up. And you know, balloons, if they're not the metallic kind, they shrivel up. And you know here I am in the hospital and my hands are like this and I didn't want to be reminded of that all the time. So I just said: "Send Purpose Driven books." I don't know why I said that but, it gave Kim and I the opportunity to give out books. And there were people from all over the church, and others, who sent us books and allowed us to minister in that way. In fact it was kind of neat. The book store in the hospital ran out of books. And on her lunch break, the lady who worked there went to Walmart and bought a bunch more. And so we had about 20 books to give out. I gave one to the girl who throws stuff. I told them to give it to her about the time she left. And we made sure it was a really heavy one so she couldn't throw it far. But she got one. The nurses got one. And one of the really cool things was when they were transporting me out on whatever day it was, it all runs together; I guess it was Thursday, the cleaning guy, who we really hadn't talked to much, stopped Kim in the hall. And I'm on the gurney being wheeled out and he pulls Kim aside and said, "Thanks for that book. I started reading it during the national championship game. I'm not a big reader but, I read the first 3 chapters of it. That's an incredible book." And so, you know, no matter what your circumstances, no matter what's going on with you; whether it's you break up with somebody or a loved one dies, or whatever, you can minister. I'm telling you, there are just people a lot worse off. I've been in hospitals for 3 weeks and I'm the lucky one. I'm walking out. A lot of people I'm in therapy with will never walk again. I feel bad going to the outpatient place right now because I walk in and I walk out. I can use my hands just not like I used to. And there are people there who are quadriplegics, paraplegics who will never walk, never use their hands again. They're just trying to get some function back so they can turn a wheelchair or something. I'm a lucky one. And so, who am I? If you stop long enough to look around you, you'll see there are a lot of people a lot worse off than you that you can minister to. And I'm thankful, in all this even though I'm not sitting here going "God thanks for breaking my neck." I'm not at that point yet, but I'm thankful that God's given me the opportunity to minister to other people in the midst of that. It's been a really neat thing to see and to be involved with.
ANOTHER THING THAT I'VE LEARNED and am learning, is that you can't take people for granted. You just can't. You know I've been married to Kim for 10 years. And I am very fortunate. You know through all of this she had a peace, too. And she didn't come up to the hospital all freaking out. She came and she ministered to me and took care of me. Did things for me that weren't in the contract when we got married. You know, my boys, not being around them for all that time. If you've ever had to call your 7 year old and tell him you're not dieing because you're afraid of what he's heard. That's tough. And you take those things for granted. We take each other for granted. I missed not being here. I've been here 9 years. And I missed not being here. Probably the hardest thing I did was that night I called during Stomp and I talked to ya'll. That was tough. When I got off the phone I just cried. I couldn't deal with that. But I wanted to do that because I knew ya'll needed to hear from me. More than I needed to hear from you. I wanted ya'll to know I was OK. Because for a lot of you it was after 11:00, after I was probably half way to Elkin hospital before you even knew what had happened to me. And I think we take each other for granted a lot of times. I think you take your parents for granted. You take your friends for granted. I know I think I take my family for granted. And when you go through a life change like this, it kind of makes you stop and evaluate your life a little bit. You know, who am I? What am I? I mean, I'm not as big and strong as I think I am. To be honest with you I need my family. I need ya'll. And so, I'm learning not to take things for granted. Now realistically, if I don't stay on top of it, 6 months from now, when I'm better, I'll fall back into the same trap possibly. We do that. But I would challenge you to look at each other and see each other the way God does and think about what it would be like if they weren't there; the person next to you wasn't there.
Honey, are you going to talk? Come on up here. I asked Kim, you have to understand, Kim is a little nervous because she doesn't think she talks well in public. She actually does a very good job. But it is a partnership. She's had to go through the same thing as I've had to go through just minus some of the pain. She's had to put up with a lot of garbage. So I'm going to let her share a few things quickly and then I'll finish up.
Kim: “Joe talked about that peace that he had when he first got in the accident. That's the one thing I want to share with ya'll that I received when Chris first called me, of course we were on the phone constantly and I prayed shortly after I got off the phone with him. You know, I claim to be a Christian; claim to follow Christ. But I don't know if I've ever experienced the amazing relationship with my Heavenly Father like I did that night. I have a wonderful supporting family. A Christian family that has always put their arms around me. And I've always taken their comfort. And that has always kind of been the first thing I've always leaned on. For the first time in my life I realized I couldn't lean on that comfort. I often turned to Joe first thing when something happens. Instead I had to go to the Lord. I sat down and I prayed. I prayed for Joe. I prayed for the protection over him and for the surgeons and for them to do a good job and have steady hands. And then I didn't know what to pray for. I didn't know what to say. I just said "God, I don't know what to pray. I don't want to pray any more." From that second on I just felt like somebody was holding me. The whole way up there it was just the most amazing thing. I can't even explain it to you. And, as a Christian, I'm sorry to say that we often don't experience the "daddy" relationship that we need to until we're in a crisis. I just can't explain to you how He held me so tight and how I stayed calm the rest of the night.
When I got to Wendell, I was just like "OK, let's go see him. Let's do this. Let's talk to the doctors. And I was fine. The Lord had just held me so tight. I walked steadily into the room. I looked at Joe, even though Wendell had already kind of pre-warned me that he wasn't going to look great. You know, and I was fine. God had given me that peace that Joe was talking about. I didn't know what he was going to be able to do. I didn't know who he was going to be. If he was going to be the same Joe or a new version. And I was OK with that.
The Bible tells you that He's the great comforter, He's the great friend. For the first time I got to experience that and I hope that you get to experience it one day too because that just draws you that much closer to Him. I think you get too comfortable with your friends and your family and you need to think about that the next time you have your crisis, try running to Him first instead of running to your friends first.
Joe: "The other thing too that I've learned is that when I was in the hospital for a devotional I started reading the last part of the book of Job. If you know the story of Job, Job went through just a lot of mess and spent a lot of time asking the question "Why"? And I didn't start with the question "Why" because, if you study the book of Job, God never answers "Why? Why did this happen?"
If you read the last couple of chapters of Job you find God questioning Job saying: "Where were you when I created things? Where were you when I did this? Where were you when I did that? Do you know where the lightening starts? Do you know where it ends? Do you know where the sheep come from?" And God just kept questioning Job and then it comes to the very end and one of the things I understand is that "I'm never going to know this side of eternity "Why?" And that's fine. I don't need an answer "Why".
But what God did do for Job and this is something I want you to understand is that at the very end, Chapter 42, it says this, Job says "I am convinced you can do anything and everything . Nothing and no one can upset your plans. You asked "Who is muddying the water?" Ignorantly confusing the issue; second guessing my purposes. I admit it, I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me, made small talk about the wonders way over my head. You told me to listen and let me do the talking. Let me ask the questions, you give the answers."
THIS IS WHAT'S COOL AND I THINK FOR ME THE NEATEST THING out of the whole thing and for you in your life one of the things you've got to get to is this, it says "I admit I once lived by rumors of you. Now I have it all first hand from my own eyes and ears. I"m sorry. Forgive me. I"ll never do that again. And I promise I'll never again live on the crust or heresay, crumbs or rumors." You know I think a lot of times and when I was your age, I believed this because my parents told me to believe it. I went to church because my parents told me to go to church. I believed the Bible because my parents told me to believe the Bible. I was good because my parents told me to be good and my youth minister told me to be good or something like that. And what Job came to the end of and kind of where I am right now in some sense is that Job woke up and realized that for the first time he'd really seen God. That he wasn't living on crumbs of God or crumbs of what somebody else spoke or rumors of God. He was seeing it first hand. And we've been able to see that through the last 3 weeks. We've seen God working in the lives of others and in our life.
The thing about my injury is that I shouldn't be where I am right now. I should be paralyzed at the very least. I shouldn't be able to use my hands at all. But I can grab things; I can hold things. I can do simple things. I'm still not where I want to be but when I walked into therapy yesterday they were like "Wow, you're a whole lot better than we thought you would be." Cause they were reading the old notes. They were like "You shouldn't be where you are right now." And so I've been able to see that.
So, for me, it's not rumors of who God is, I'm seeing that and I think for a lot of us we come here to STOMP and we go to different things and we hear things but we never experience it because we don't open our eyes and ears long enough to experience it. We go through our day and we never really know who God is. We never really see God face to face.
And the sad thing is a lot of you are going to go through your whole youth group, the whole time you're here, and live on rumors and crumbs of God and never really see God. Part of it comes with having a relationship with Him. Part of it comes with having a time we spend looking at God's word. Part of it's finding opportunities to minister to other people and see how God uses that. But I would just challenge you; don't live on the rumors of God, don't live on the crumbs of God or crumbs of what I say. Because that's what you're living on right now. You're hearing my experience. You're hearing what God's taught me. But a better question is "What's God taught you?" Some of you were on that trip and had to hear the news that I was hurt. Some of you were like "Woo, yea!", but some of you had to deal with things that you didn't want to deal with. And it affected your life and made you think about things. Those things are not crumbs of God. THAT'S GOD! But what have you done with it since then? And so I want to challenge you with that.
The other thing that I want to do real quickly is play this song because music is a great thing. And one of the things God did for me while I was laying there, I'd bought this Casting Crowns cd just before Christmas and had listened to this song "Praise You In The Storm" and had liked the song. But I wasn't in the storm. But what God used the song for was when I was being transported back and forth to different hospitals on a backboard with my head hurting because I have a goose egg where I got a ski boot in the back of the head, and all the tree branches stuck all up in the stuff they had and my head is bleeding and all that stuff, this song came to my mind. It was just going through my mind and so I just want to end with this song. You have the words there, you can read it. But I want you to understand, this song for me is real. I can praise God through the storm. And I'm still in the middle of the storm. I might look good, but I'm tired. I'm ready to go home. And I don't have any energy at all; my hands don't work. I'm ready to go home. But, I tell you what, I can praise God in the storm. And I hope you'll be able to do that too.Artist: CASTING CROWNS
Album: LIFESONG
Track: PRAISE YOU IN THIS STORM
Words by Mark Hall
Music by Mark Hall and Bernie Herms
(Romans 8:28/2Corinthians 4:16-18/Psalm 42:5/Psalm 121:1-2/Job 1:20-21/Daniel 3:16-18)
I was sure by now God you would have reached down
and wiped our tears away,
stepped in and saved the day.
But once again, I say "Amen",
and it's still raining
as the thunder rolls
I barely hear your whisper through the rain,
I'm with you
and as your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away.
Chorus:
And I'll praise you in this storm
and I will lift my hands
that you are who you are
no matter where I am
and every tear I've cried
you hold in your hand
you never left my side
and though my heart is torn
I will praise you in this storm
I remember when I stumbled in the wind
you heard my cry you raised me up again
my strength is almost gone how can I carry on
if I can't find you
and as the thunder rolls
I barely hear you whisper through the rain
I'm with you
and as your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away
Chorus
I lift my eyes unto the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth
I lift my eyes unto the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth
Chorus
Copyright 2005 Club Zoo Music(BMI)
SWECS Music (BMI) (adm. by EMI CMG Publishing)
Word Music, LLC (ASCAP)
Banahama Tunes (ASCAP) (adm. by Word Music, LLC).
(Song Ends)
Joe Prays: “God, one of things we've learned is that you're God and we're not. And, Lord, because you're God, you can do anything you want. Lord, you can heal me or you can leave me the way I am. Lord, it's not up to me to ask "Why?" It's up to me to say "You're God." And to accept it and to trust that you're going to do your best for me. And Lord, I thank you for these students who are here and these adults and Lord, for their friendship and Lord, forgive us for the times we take each other for granted or we take your peace for granted. Lord, I pray that you'd help us to learn from each other and learn from this. So that, Lord, when we face storms again, Lord, we can praise you in them. Lord, you say to "pray without ceasing" and to praise you without ceasing. So, Lord, I pray that would be our attitude. Lord, I thank you that you are just an awesome God. I thank you for the way that you work. And I pray that you continue to work.
In Jesus' name I pray,
Amen.
Want to know more about Joe and Kim's source of peace?
Click on:
http://www.thekristo.com
or
http://www.needhim.org
or
http://www.jesusfilm.org/languages/index.html