I often write about humor and humorous things. We all enjoy remembering humorous moments. When we sit with family and/or friends in a relaxed atmosphere the conversation tends to roll around to good memories, which often are humorous. But when we are left to our own thoughts, we often revert back to memories that are painful. Learning experiences that leave a mark. This is one such memory. I was young and very inexperienced. I could hardly be held accountable since the situation was over my head. But, still, I failed someone and it stays with me until this day.

"Yes, I would like to lift up in prayer the inhabitants of the planet Randar, which is the fourth planet from the star in the Volonie system. There has been a great famine there and many of the inhabitants, particularly the very young and the very old, are suffering terribly. Also, pray that I can complete my star ship in time to conduct a relief expedition to Randar. I have most of the pieces together, but I am still in need of engine components and an appropriate fuel source."

          It was a Wednesday night prayer meeting and Bible study in the summer of 1982 at a church in Miami where I was the assistant. It was pretty much like any other Wednesday night. Not many in attendance, but still a nice mix of ages. Occasional visitors. The folks there were the people who really wanted to study the Word of God. The young man who had just finished speaking was named Graham. He had been coming to Sunday services for over a month and I had been pleased with the way one of our young adults, Manual, had taken him under his wing. Manual had gotten Graham to come to the Wednesday night service a couple of weeks earlier and Graham was starting to open up to people. He had even shown my wife and another young woman in our church, Maria, some of his sketches of a design for a possible spacecraft. He claimed to have been employed at one time by NASA, but we just kind of dismissed that idea as the imaginings of an over active mind. Interesting character, but just that; a character. Now, however, we had just crossed a line. He was an extremely serious young man who had no sense of humor, but still I felt like he was joking. Then, though, I somehow knew he wasn't joking at all. I didn't know what to say, so I nodded.

          When it came time to pray, I brought up Graham's request and said that the Lord knew exactly what the need was and I asked the Lord to deal with it in His way. Maybe that was a cop out, but I had never had anyone ask me to pray for a race of beings on another planet. Nor had I ever been asked to pray for someone to find engine components and fuel for a space craft they were building in their parent’s garage. This was new territory for me, so I prayed the only thing I could think of to pray; for the Lord to handle it as He thought best. He did, but not before there was a good deal of pain for some of us.

          A few weeks later Graham wheeled a shopping cart from a local grocery store into the sanctuary on a Sunday morning just before church. I caught him before he could get halfway down the aisle and asked him what he was doing. He explained that he had just made the last payment on the cart from a couple of kids who had told him that they owned the store and that he was going to use it as part of his landing gear on his spacecraft. Well, I asked, why do you have it here? Because I am being watched and I need this to be kept in a safe place. Again, not knowing what else to do and seeing that he was agitated and fearful, we put it in with the lawn mowers.

          During all this time, he was showing a growing attraction toward one of our young ladies, whom we call Maria. A few weeks after the shopping cart incident, he confided in me on a Sunday night that he was going to kidnap Maria and take her with him to Randar. In the absence of other humans, she would have to marry him. He would take her by force if he had to, but it would be for her own good. Another line had been crossed. Despite the fact that he was obviously a deeply troubled young man, I had to make him realize that he could in no way, shape or form lay a hand on Maria or anyone else. I had kept backing away from the problem rather than meeting it head on and now the problem was starting to get away from me. This was deeper than an eccentric young man with a crush on a girl.

          Graham left me that night in a fit of rage. The next day Marsha and I went to the home of his parents, where he lived, and I told his mother the story. She cried and told us about Graham. He really had been a “rocket scientist.” He had been one of those kids who had graduated from high school before other kids his age had gotten out of junior high. He graduated from college in less than two years. He shot through graduate school with about as much effort as a high school senior would burn going through first grade. He married, he started a wonderful career with NASA and he had a nervous breakdown. He started hearing voices. His wife left him, sadly, for Graham’s twin brother, and Graham descended deeper into the pit of confusion. For a brief while after he started coming to our church he seemed better, but them it all fell apart. With this last event, his family had no choice but to have him committed to an institution.

          Sitting there with his mother I got my first real glimpse into what true grief was. I left deeply grieved for that crushed mom. She made the calls, Graham was picked up and we never saw him again.

          Looking back now it sits in my mind as an extremely sad episode. Throughout the ministry there are many such sad times. Sometimes, like in the case of Graham, it is sad because of the mistakes made that might have changed things. But in most cases, it is sad because, even though you did your best, you had to stand by and watch someone self-destruct.

          We may not be having mental breakdowns, but we are having spiritual breakdowns. We are accepting the ways of the world into our churches. We allow television to bring language and behavior and actions into our homes that we would never have allowed otherwise. We have allowed the truths of the Bible to be blurred by the deceptions of a society gone mad.

          For a while I lived with Graham's strangeness when I should have been trying to help him. I am afraid we live with our spiritual breakdowns, thinking it will be all right, hoping it will pass. The longer we live with our breakdown the more normal it seems, until we can no longer tell what is right and what is wrong. Then we have truly lost our way.