Falling

For the second time in just over a week, fighter jets from the USS Harry S. Truman have fallen into the ocean, raising concerns about a pattern of mishaps aboard the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier operating in the Red Sea.

The latest incident occurred when an F/A-18F Super Hornet crashed into the Red Sea during a failed landing attempt. According to a U.S. official, the fighter jet experienced a "failed arrestment" while trying to land on the carrier, prompting both aviators to eject. They were quickly recovered with only minor injuries, and no additional personnel were harmed.

The Navy has launched an investigation into the cause of the failed landing. The mishap took place during routine flight operations.

Just eight days earlier, another F/A-18 fighter jet was lost from the same aircraft carrier. In that case, the plane was being towed in the hangar bay when it fell overboard, taking a tow tractor with it.

These incidents mark the third and fourth significant operational failures involving the Truman within the past year. In February, the carrier collided with a large merchant vessel near Port Said, Egypt. Prior to that, another F/A-18 was accidentally shot down by a ship in the Truman’s own strike group.

The USS Harry S. Truman has been stationed in the Red Sea as part of the U.S. Navy’s mission to protect commercial shipping lanes amid ongoing threats from Houthi rebels in Yemen.

These back-to-back aircraft losses are prompting closer scrutiny of operations aboard the Truman. The Navy has not yet indicated whether changes in procedures or readiness protocols will follow.

Possible Preaching Angle:

We must remain vigilant and attentive, individually and as a church body, lest through carelessness we fall into sin, which leads to destruction. Through teamwork and communication, we can protect our communities by guarding against calamity.

Trinity Evangelical Divinty School professor Kevin Vanhoozer writes about caring for his aging mother in an issue of CT magazine:

For nine years now, I have been watching my mother’s identity slowly fade as memories and capacities switch off, one after another, like lights of a house shutting down for the night. Marriage may be a school of sanctification, as Luther said, but caring for aging parents is its grad school, especially when he or she lives with you and suffers from dementia.

It’s been said that as we become older, we become caricatures of ourselves. Dementia speeds the process. It’s easy to see why: With loss of executive cognitive functioning, we’re less prone to monitor what we say and do. We begin to fly on auto-pilot, re-tracing again and again well-trod paths.

What lies under … the social masks we have carefully constructed? What lies under my mother’s happy face? (“I’m fine,” she’d say, even after a fall). I recently discovered the answer.

Years into the dementia, she lost her last line of defense and began to voice her inmost thoughts aloud. “Father, don’t let me fall” accompanied her every shuffling step behind her walker. Initially I thought this terribly sad—clearly, she wasn’t fine but anxious—yet I eventually found it comforting. The Bible depicts life as a walk: Shouldn’t we all be praying to the Lord to help us avoid missteps? Though she had forgotten former friends and neighbors, and large swaths of her own life, she remembered the fatherhood of God.

In his book, Beautiful People Don’t Just Happen, Pastor Scott Sauls writes:

During rehearsal, I always warn bridesmaids to keep their knees slightly bent while standing during the ceremony. The combination of high heels and locked knees limits oxygen flow to the brain, which dramatically increases the possibility of fainting. Over the years, five bridesmaids have forgotten my instructions and fainted.

Thankfully, I did not need to be the first responder in any of these fainting incidents. Each time, medical professionals have left their seats and rush toward the fallen bridesmaid to tend to her. Each time, they successfully resuscitated her, enabling us to finish the ceremony with the bridesmaid restored to her honored place, but now with her knees dutifully and carefully bent. At the end of the ceremony, when the last hymn is played and the bride and groom walk the aisle together, the bridesmaid sings. No longer falling on the ground, she is also able to join the bride, groom, and guests for the dancing and feasting.

God’s response to our sin is not unlike that of a medical professional to a fallen bridesmaid. Not only is it within his ability to awaken and restore us to our honored place, not only is it within his ability to put a new song in our mouths, it is also within his very nature to do so. With resolve, he gets out of his seat and tends to us on the ground where we have fallen. He breathes life into us as he tends to us in our weakest, most humiliating, and most vulnerable places. He lifts us up off the ground and invites us to sing of his love, and take our honored seat at the marriage feast.

Almost five years to the day after he returned home the first time, the prodigal son emptied his bank account, packed a few changes of clothes, and snuck off for the faraway country. Again.

The first year back he was just glad to be home.

The second year was toughest; he still couldn’t get (rid of) … the shame that chewed away at his soul.

The third year, things leveled out a little. He started feeling more at home, back in synch with his former life.

The fourth year, certain things began to irk him. His old itches longed to be scratched.

And the fifth year, it happened. All the former allurements came knocking, rapping their knuckles on his heart’s front door.

And so the prodigal relapsed. Re-sinned. Re-destroyed his life.

You know him—or her. Maybe it’s your best friend. Maybe it's your child. Or maybe it’s you. That thing you swore you’d never do again, you did it last night. You left the straight and narrow. Prodigals have a way of finding themselves right back in the pigsty.

In that moment … heaven and hell contend within you. Hell shouts, “Now you’ve gone and done it. You stupid piece of garbage. You’re a lost, lonely, hopeless cause. You’re a pig. And that’s all you’ll ever be.”

But there is another voice. It’s the voice of heaven, the familiar lilt of a Dad’s voice, echoing down the long hallways of hope … down to the deepest, darkest caverns of your pain. He doesn’t accuse. He doesn’t berate. He only mouths two simple words … of heaven’s redemptive love: “Come Home.”

The second time, the third time, the thousandth time, he will sprint … to meet you down the street, throw his arms around you, kiss you, and command that the fattened calf be barbecued. The Father is standing on the porch, his hand shading the sun from his eyes, scanning the horizon for the familiar image of the one who will ever remain, his precious, beloved child. “Come home.”

Mount Walker, about 60 miles northwest of Seattle, is said to have remarkable views. But one woman’s unforgettable experience atop the mountain restricted her field of view considerably. That’s because she fell into a pit toilet trying to rescue her phone.

According to Fire Department Chief Tim Manly, she was using her phone on the pit toilet when it fell inside. She first tried to remove the toilet seat in order to reach in, and then used her dog leash as a makeshift rope to lower herself in. That effort, however, failed--dropping her headfirst into the toilet.

Once reunited with her phone, she tried and failed to climb out. After that didn’t work, she called 911 for help. Once firefighters arrived on the scene, they used a surprisingly low-tech solution: cinder blocks, which she used to stand on. After she was high enough, they were able to attach a harness and lift her out of the toilet.

According to the department’s statement, the woman was uninjured and strongly encouraged to seek medical attention, but she only wanted to leave. Chief Manly said, “I’ve been doing this for 40 years. And that was a first.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sometimes when we think we can fix things on our own we end up making things worse. Sometimes God prompts us to take action; other times, to wait until proper help can arrive. Wisdom is in discerning the difference between the two.

The risk of falling should be obvious. It is so obvious that it has become an established part of the legal system. In a recent civil case, an appeals court dismissed the complaint of a college student who had fallen from a bunk bed. The basis of the case was that the institution “neglected” to include a notice concerning the risk and danger of falling from the bed. The court held that the student, who had slept in the bunk for three months, had “equal knowledge that the lofted bed was raised off the ground and lacked guardrails before she fell.”

The judge’s decision concluded with the phrase: “And significantly we have repeatedly held . . . that 'no danger is more commonly realized or risk appreciated than that of falling.’”

To read the complete court decision click here.

Parents and other family members are rejoicing after a three-year-old survived a life-threatening scare.

Police in Stamford responded to the Fairfield Apartments after onlookers reported seeing a small child fall out of a 2nd-story window overlooking the parking lot. According to Stamford Police Sgt. Brian Butler, the child was found after her fall crying and moving around. She survived by landing in a patch of fresh mulch, a feat made all the more impressive considering the considerable height involved. Although it was only a second-story apartment, the architecture of the property meant the window was more like four-to-five stories high.

Butler said the girl was being attended to be two family members, one of which has a partial disability of sight. The fall triggered an investigation with the Department of Children and Families.

The child was taken to Stamford Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, where she's listed in stable condition.

Potential Preaching Angles: With God, a miracle is always possible. When there is life and growth, calamity can be absorbed.

The Christmas season is not only one of the most stressful times of the year; it's also one of the most dangerous times of the year. A recent article summarized some of the research from Great Britain on Christmas stress and accidents:

• Almost 20 percent of people find the experience of hosting guests and preparing for Christmas meals and festivities "completely overwhelming." A third of women feel more stressed throughout December than any other month across the year.
• Three percent of people suffer an electric shock due to badly wired Christmas lighting and one in 50 fall out of the attic trying to get the tinsel and decorations down.
• Some 2.6 million people have even fallen off a stool or ladder while hanging up the decorations.
• A mammoth 700,000 people have been injured in a sales rush, while trying to snag a bargain.

Russell Atkinson, CEO of Great Britain's National Accident Helpline said:

Unfortunately the festive and winter season can bring with it hazards for your health, from the cold weather and long, dark nights to unsafe electric decorations around the home. As such, we urge people to pause and take steps to keep themselves, their friends and family safe, in order to ensure they have a relaxed and cheerful holiday season.

Possible Preaching Angles: Of course this illustration highlights the need for joy and peace at Christmas, but it also highlights what Christ did in the Incarnation—he did not play it safe. He entered into a world of accidents and hardships and injustice and profound unsafety and suffering.

It's like a scene out of an action movie: one moment, the city street seems calm and ordinary, and in the next moment, the asphalt and concrete crumble away, revealing a giant, gaping hole.

Unfortunately, it's not a scene from a movie—it was an event that unfolded in Beihai, a city in China. And a scooter rider got to experience the sudden sinkhole up close and personal.

"When he did arrive at the fresh abyss, he appears to have been staring at his cellphone," reports NPR's The Two-Way. Soon he was staring at the inside of the collapsed road.

The bad news? The cause of the collapse hasn't yet been determined. The good news? "Shortly after [the scooter driver's] plunge, he climbed back to the surface under his own power, apparently unharmed."

Potential Preaching Angles: Hopefully not too many of us have to worry about driving into sinkholes in our day-to-day lives—but "black holes" can appear in many shapes and sizes and forms. Thankfully, the apostle Peter has some advice on staying alert against the wiles of the Enemy: "Resist him, standing firm in the faith" (1 Pet. 5:9).

The Internet is full of videos of clumsy people doing clumsy things. Some are in high school, others are grown adults, but have you ever seen a video of a clumsy astronaut? NASA has. Reports show that experts studied hours of lunar footage from the 1970s in an effort to learn more about the effects of moon gravity on humans. Now if the thought of NASA engineers sitting around watching astronauts bounce and twirl around on the moon doesn't provide enough humor, hearing the engineers' astute observations might: "A preliminary analysis," one report reads, "suggested that loss of traction on loose soil caused crewmen to slip and fall."

Possible Preaching Angle:

One might wonder if that's how God sometimes feels as he watches us continually stumble and fall: it may be hard to watch, but it's the only way we'll ever learn how to stand in this strange world.

It happened in just a blink with a quarter mile to go at the 2005 running of the Preakness. Afleet Alex had battled his way to the front of the pack when another horse cut in front of him, and their heels clipped each other. Afleet Alex stumbled, his knees buckled, his nose nearly went into the dirt, and his jockey, Jeremy Rose, hung on.

“That’s the closest I’ve ever been without falling. I thought for sure we were going down,” Rose said. “The thought process was, I was going to get run over. Luckily, he came right back up underneath me.”

Afleet Alex not only recovered, he went on to win the race by nearly five lengths.

The Bible sometimes refers to the Christian life as running a race in which we all stumble, and yet if we hold on, the Lord provides us sure footing and balance so that we will not fall.

Success doesn't mean everything in our lives has turned out well. You can be successful in coming back from a fall.

There are many kinds of sorrow on earth, but the deepest of all sorrows is when the heart loses Christ, and He is no longer seen, and there is no hope of comfort from Him. Only a few are so sorely tempted. All comfort has gone, all joy is ended, there is no help from heaven or sun or moon, from angel or any creature. There is even no help from God. But the world rejoices.