I'm moved to write a second in one day, which is a first.
Chris Henry died today.
Maybe in some ways he was headed for death for the past 10 years or so, but today he died.
I wrote a story about him at the beginning of the 2008 season. He was a professional football player who had been on hard times, mostly of his own making, and had been out of football for a while on suspension.
This is who he was as I wrote in August of 2008:
"Ask anyone in Belle Chasse who grew up with Chris Henry, played football with him or coached him and you get a picture of the former Cardinals standout that doesn't fit with what the world knows of him.
He was a quiet, shy kid who gave no one trouble, despite growing up without a father's influence. But ask virtually any other football fan about that same Chris Henry, and chances are they will say he's a thug who can't stay out of trouble with five arrests in three years.
How does one become the other?
That's the question that haunts Henry, even as he again prepares to play in the NFL.
Despite being suspended by the league for the first four games of the regular season, he re-signed with Cincinnati on Monday, freeing him to practice. But one can't forget that if not for the trouble with the law, he would be playing against his hometown team tonight. Instead, he hopes this is the second or third chance he needs, and he said he won't blow another opportunity.
He told the Cincinnati Enquirer on Monday: "I have no worries. I am fully confident about the situation. It's kind of like, in the back of my head I know this is my last opportunity, but I try not to think about it."
Marvin Frazier, Henry's representative/agent, said Henry is capable of doing that.
"He's not a thug," Frazier said. "The only person he hurt was himself."
Said family friend Leatrice Hollis, a former aunt by marriage who remains close to him: "The image that you have of him is not the person I know. I'm not making excuses for him; he did what he did. But there are reasons for everything."
Say the name Chris Henry now and everyone thinks, as a Cincinnati judge said, that he's "a one-man crime wave."
That's the story of who he was. But who he became was another one. He played the entire season of 2008 without calamity. He wore a new tatoo under his ear that said, "blessed." He was living with his girl friend and his three children.
Then suddenly, he was involved in a domestic dispute, as they said today, and he fell out of a moving truck and now he is dead.
When folks point out that Christians are just as likely to be divorced as the world figures, one shakes a head and has nothing to offer in return. But doesn't it seem likely that if Chris or Tiger or Steve McNair or whomever would have found the Lord and committed themselves to Him instead of whatever it the heck they were doing with women outside their marriage or even with their wifes they might be alive and well today. I know Tiger is alive, but surely you don't think he's well.
I know this much: Jesus said do not let your hearts be worried. Believe in God, believe also in me. Peace I leave you, my peace I give, not as the world gives.
To obtain this peace, one must one day be fulfilled and not longing for the next thing, be it drugs, be in female or be it male. One must be fulfilled. And the only way to be completely fulfilled, I believe, is a belief in Jesus Christ as King of King and Lord of Lords. If one believes that we are called by God to do what God wants us to do, it limits us from wanting what we do not have. Some call that coveting. I call it addiction and craziness.
That Steve McNair was shot to death by an adultress was stunning. That Tiger had more than a few mistresses in the world is shocking.
I can't say that Chris getting killed was as shocking or as stunning. It does not lessen the sadness, however.
Blessed, he was, if he found a way out of the life that he had been living. Blessed, I pray he is today, as he has crossed the river Jordan and met the one who ultimately decides what our name means.
No comments:
Post a Comment