Disaster, Death & Deliverance
By: Lynn Bolster
In March 2024, the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed in Baltimore, MD when a cargo ship leaving the Port of Baltimore slammed into one of the bridge’s support pillars. This was a catastrophic incident that reminded me of 9/11 when the World Trade Centers fell. The bridge event was nowhere near the devastation of 9/11, but it still makes anyone sit up and take notice. The Baltimore skyline was vacant. The average person sees a monstrosity of a structure and presumes it is infallible. Its vast size makes us trust in its safety and durability until it isn’t. Then we have to wrap our heads around its enormity, realizing that it too is just as capable of disaster as a house of cards.
For container truck drivers, pier employees, and all associated workers, their lives were disrupted. And how many travelers, commuters, delivery folks, and average citizens will have to reroute their schedules around the city to perform their daily routines? I remember the many years we trucked over that bridge when we hauled off the piers, which I discussed, oddly enough, in my February 2024 column titled Cross That Bridge. When viewing the footage of it falling, watching vehicles move across, consider the construction workers on the bridge at the time, lost in this occurrence. Which brings me to the sticky wicket here. Were these workers saved? Did they know the Lord? Where are they now, up there or down there? I will admit I don’t fear dying, I just fear how I’m going to die. I cannot imagine sitting in my work truck, taking a break from repairing potholes, and then falling to my death, knowing so, as you go down to drown – all of a sudden. God gives no warning, you know it’s coming but you just don’t know when.
When 9/11 happened, the hardest thing I couldn’t pull my eyes away from was seeing workers jump to their deaths from the windows of the World Trade Center. Imagine in that moment, the unthinkable decision they had to make. They weren’t choosing whether to die but rather how to die. Which is better, burning to death in a fiery inferno or choosing to leap to your death from a skyscraper? That is no choice. I read once that life is pleasant, death is peaceful but it’s the transition that is troublesome.
I remember when my guy Bill lay dying under hospice, a fellow also named Bill, I’ll call him Bill2, who was the leader of the York-Adams TFC Global chapter, stopped by the house. My Bill was not a believer and didn’t enjoy pop-up visits from Jehovah’s Witnesses and the like spewing their beliefs on our back porch. However, this day was different. He knew Bill2 so when he arrived, I invited him in. As I worked in the kitchen, he sat with my Bill in the other room. Bill2 was a fellow saved trucker, very adept at sharing his testimony and bringing others to the Lord in an unoffensive manner. As he engaged Bill on the topic, I thought this would not go over well.
As the conversation ensued, I heard Bill2 start to ask Bill about his beliefs in God. He was very direct, respectful, and able to easily engage. Then he began asking key questions about his faith or lack of it. Eavesdropping from the next room, I was astounded to hear Bill repeating the salvation prayer as Bill 2 led him through it. He also explained about sin, deliverance, and how our God is so forgiving. I fell to my knees on the kitchen floor crying tears of joy. I never thought the man of steel behind the wheel that I had known for 22 years, a good man but one who kept a very unforgiving heart, would surrender. I’ll never forget that moment. A few months later as I held Bill’s hand in the living room, while he lay dying on the hospital bed, I watched his heartbeat through his shirt, once, twice, a third time and then it stopped. I actually watched this man die before my eyes, I saw the last beats of a human’s heart. As sobering as this moment was, I knew where he was going now. He may have waited until the end to be saved but he didn’t play chicken with death. He followed Bill2’s cue.
So please, if you haven’t accepted God, consider the fact that you are reading this article as your sign. Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe God raised him from the dead you will be saved.” And what better position to be in? You never know when the bridge might fall or the skyscraper may tumble.
