PLEASE, GOD . . .

There are so many wretched headlines in the news that I read with a sense of detached relief: detached because the news has nothing really to do with me, relief because the unhappy news does not concern me or my loved ones.

This evening, I learned that a very close friend of the family -- so close that he is family and a man that my own unsentimental father readily calls his "best friend" -- had become a headline himself, injuring himself grievously in an accidental gun discharge yesterday night at his home.

No one knows exactly how and/or why the gun discharged; we just know it wasn't supposed to, that it wasn't a homicide attempt, and it wasn't a suicide attempt. It was just a dumb, dumb accident.

The bullet lodged somewhere in the back of his head -- we're still unclear as to whether or not it hit bone, or actually made its way into the brain. What we do know is that thankfully, the bullet was in a position where it was safe enough for doctors to go in and get it. The damn bullet is out now, our friend is recovering in neuro-ICU, and there is no swelling of the brain -- no bleeding, no nothing. Although he's under incredibly heavy post-operative sedation, doctors say he is completely responsive, able to speak but for the breathing tube being in the way, able to move his limbs heavily when instructed to, and suffering no nerve damage and no foreseeable other side effects, aside from a predictably raging headache.

In the morning, he goes in for a "clean-up" operation. He'll be watched for infection and for sneaky and nefarious after-effects. Then he begins to heal.

His family, my family, and our friends have made the excruciatingly slow emotional climb, today and this evening, from the depths of surreal hopelessness and impossibility to the ledge of firm faith and tenuous smiles. Too many questions plagued all of us: how could this happen? Why did this happen? What is going to happen? But all these questions can be safely put aside, for we know it is He who carries him, He who for whatever reason chose not to claim one of his own yesterday night, and He who will alleviate the raging headache.

See, it's not so much "but for the grace of God . . . " but "BY THE GRACE OF GOD . . ."

Amen.