Posted on 03/15/2009 5:37:33 AM PDT by Zakeet
The Rev. Al Meredith was more than 700 miles away when a gunman walked into a Maryville church and gunned down its preacher in front of his horrified congregation. But the tragedy hit the Texas preacher hard, and he's coming to help.
A decade ago, another gunman fired a hail of bullets and tossed a pipe bomb down the aisle at Meredith's church in Fort Worth, killing seven people and wounding seven others, then calmly sat in a back pew and shot himself in the head.
On Sunday, services are scheduled to resume at First Baptist Church in this St. Louis suburb, one week after the intruder killed senior pastor Fred Winters with a bullet through the heart. Meredith was invited to be the guest preacher in hopes he can draw on his experience to ease the misery at First Baptist.
"I don't have three points and a poem on how to deal with tragedy. I don't have any magic formula on how to emerge triumphantly," he told The Associated Press by telephone from Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, two days before leaving for Illinois.
"If out of our tragedy God can use (that) that give hope and help to others, then it's not worthless. It's redemptive."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
First Baptist of Maryville: http://fbmaryville.org/
Wedgwood Baptist: http://www.wedgwoodbc.org/
Sharing grief with someone who understands can sometimes lessen the grief.
He is in a better place now....God love him, God bless his family.
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