Posts Tagged: Conversion
Kurt Cobain: A Different Perspective Twenty Years Later
This coming week, April 5th, 2014 will be the 20th anniversary of the suicide of one Mr. Kurt Cobain.
Cobain was 27 years old–
I was 16 years old.
I was crushed!
Kurt Cobain for those that don’t know was the lead singer of the Grunge band, “Nirvana.” In 1994 for me music was all about Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Doors, and Celine Dion. Yes, that is right I said Celine Dion…there is a story to that last one, but I’ll spare you of it.
Nirvana though was truly at the top of my music love list! I was an acerbic kid and the in-your-face lyrics that Kurt Cobain as the lead singer and songwriter produced resonated with my bitter life.
I had grown-up hearing the stories of the 60’s, always feeling that I had been born in the wrong era, but now I felt like this man, Kurt Cobain, was our generations Janis Joplin or Jim Morrison. And I guess he truly was since he/his music was loud, in your face, and just like that–dead.
While he didn’t die of a drug overdose like Joplin & Morrison, Cobain died of a self-inflicted gun-shot wound. The autopsy report revealed that if he hadn’t killed himself with a gun-shot blast he would have been dead from drugs shortly anyway as his body was so full of them his heart would have likely stopped that same day.
Twenty years ago when I heard the news I remember camping out in front of the TV for days taking in every single story from, what was then truly a music channel, MTV.
You see I wasn’t just a fan of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”; in fact I resented those individuals that acted upset by Cobain’s death but really only knew that one song. NO! I was a true fan, I even had a cassette tape of “Bleach” their independently released album.
Twenty years ago when I heard the news I remember being almost proud of Cobain. His suicide made him even more heroic to my teenage mind. I thought, “Cobain had had enough. Society had been “raping” him so long and he finally said ‘that’s it, you can’t touch me anymore.'” (this was the language I would use in reference to his song “Rape Me”).
Twenty years ago when I heard the news I remember being affirmed in my own desire to die. I thought going out like Cobain would be somehow satisfying, I was I guess you could say caught-up in the Werther effect or Suicide Contagion of Cobain’s death.
Twenty years ago when I heard the news I turned on Nirvana and got high in honor of Cobain.
Twenty years ago I gave no thought to the the 2-year-old daughter Cobain was leaving behind.
Twenty years later my perspective has changed…
My new perspective can be summed-up in three thoughts:
- Jesus’ heart hurt(s) because He loves Kurt Cobain and died for him, just like He died for the rest of us. This is a truth that should resonate in the mind of every Christian at the knowledge of each and every death in this world. We should not become callus to death, the greatest evidence of our greatest enemy, and we definitely should never glorify it! Jesus died, in part to put an end to all death.
- Kurt Cobain reached the final destination that all folk that don’t understand and accept the love of Jesus will eventually arrive at. No, maybe all won’t take their lives like Cobain did; but all, apart from Jesus, will at some point in their quiet moments, in their alone times, in their solitude feel a deep emptiness that they believe nothing but death can take away.
- While I was mourning the death of Kurt Cobain twenty-years ago, Jesus was orchestrating things so that I would choose to worship a different hero that gave of His life freely rather than ending it selfishly. That is a pretty amazing truth. If you had told that 16 year old kid that He would one day be a preacher in love with Jesus I would have had a very hard time believing you. It was at that time much easier to believe my ultimate reality would fall more along the lines of Mr. Cobain’s. I praise Jesus while I was wandering aimlessly after the world of Cobain, Jesus was wandering not so aimlessly after me.
17 Years
17 years ago roughly around the time, I am writing this short post, 9:30 p.m., on a Friday evening just like tonight, in a great church in Centerville, Ohio just outside of Dayton, OH. Pastor Neil Richmund stood up and made a request that forever changed my life.
My house was right across the street, providential that the school vespers would happen to be there on that night. If it hadn’t of been I wouldn’t have gone since I was already an hour-and-a-half late.
“If you have felt like God has been trying to say something to you these last few weeks about your life and your decision for Him, I want you to stand. Maybe you don’t even know what He wants and you aren’t sure what it all means, but you know want things to be different. Please stand!”
It all started with a group of 8 students that went from my school to a Prayer Conference in England, no I was not one of those 8, in fact even if the opportunity had been presented to me to go to England I would have turned it down because I wanted nothing to do with any type of God activity…actually, I thought God wanted nothing to do with me either, so it was an even relationship or so I thought…
But God didn’t feel about me the way I thought He did so He sent a friend of mine, actually a few friends of mine, but one in particular, Greg Taylor to England. And while Greg was in England going through his own conversion of sorts, the Lord told Greg that his mission when he got back to Ohio was, “Chad.”
This guy is now the Youth Director of the Wisconsin Seventh-day Adventist Conference
Praise Jesus Greg’s heart was truly converted which means he was willing to endure any level of ridicule to fulfill his mission, because ridicule was indeed what he received. When Greg told me that God had told him to talk to me, I told Greg he was “full of ….”. But Greg didn’t care, he loved me and more importantly he loved Jesus! So he kept talking day in and day out. I got more and more irritated, in part because there began to be things that were happening in my mind and heart that I didn’t know how to deal with. After an undergrad degree in Theology, a graduate degree in Divinity (what does that mean anyway, Master of Divinity?), and after 8 years of being a pastor I could give you some very knowing answer, it was the Holy Spirit convicting my heart, but at the time it was just unnerving.
I thought I wanted to stay the same, but the deck really was stacked against that happening. A group of 6 at my school had started praying for me when they got back from England, along with my future wife in California whom I had yet to meet but who had also been in England and had learned of this hard headed rebel named Chad. There were also a host of Mom’s praying for me at The Kettering SDA Church lead by Mel Miller, the mom of my dear friend Heather. They were all united in prayer for me. I had no idea so many were praying for me, but God knew and the Holy Spirit kept working.
The people of this church prayed for me before I was saved and after as well. It was here I was mentored through the
first years and missteps of my journey with Jesus. I am forever grateful!
So on April 26, 1996 after a month of resistance, of swearing I would never be one of them. In my heart telling myself even if I did want to be one of them it was too late, God couldn’t forgive me. After a month of Heaven being deluged with prayer that was unknown to me but received joyfully in the courts of Heaven, Pastor Richmund stood up and began to speak. A man that had been my friend even though I did everything to make it known that I wanted nothing to do with his God or his way of life, yet he still loved me and so when he spoke that night I listened–
“If you have felt like God has been trying to say something to you these last few weeks about your life and your decision for Him, I want you to stand. Maybe you don’t even know what He wants and you aren’t sure what it all means, but you know want things to be different. Please stand!”
I stood…
17 years, thank You, Jesus!