On Sunday, May 25, 2008 between 5:30 and 6:15 p.m., a tornado about a mile wide with 205 mile per hour winds roared through Parkersburg, Iowa, a small town of less than 2,000 people. The tornado killed nine people, demolished 288 homes and wiped out one-third of the town. One of the structures that the tornado severely damaged was the Aplington-Parkersburg high school and its football field that the town affectionately knew as “The Sacred Acre.” This field was run by Ed Thomas, A-P’s football coach for over 37 years. In a book chronicling the personal stories from the tornado, Thomas wrote, “Our football field is our town square, the place where we connect with each other and with something greater than ourselves. It’s kind of like church that way. There’s a reason folks have nicknamed the field ‘The Sacred Acre.'” After the tornado hit, Coach Thomas was surprised to find people congregating around the football field. He wrote, “That’s when it struck me. It wasn’t just our team that had an all-for-one, one-for-all spirit. It was the whole town. … All my years of coaching, I preached strength and togetherness. Out here on the field, I was seeing that principle in action, like never before.”
According to many people in Parkersburg, Coach Thomas was the driving force that helped the town recover after the tornado. Despite the deep damage to the high school, Thomas rebuilt the football field, led his team to the state semifinals that same year, further establishing himself as an important pillar in the small Iowa community. So imagine the shock the town felt when they heard that on Wednesday, June 24, 2009, just a year after the tornado, Thomas was gunned down by Mark Becker, a 24-year-old man who was a former player and a brother of a current player.
According to Yahoo! Sports who wrote the story that brought this to my attention, Thomas had tried to counsel his alleged killer at the request of Becker’s family, which attends the same church where Thomas served as an elder. Many people in this town did not see this as a random occurrence just like the residents who believe it’s no accident the tornado spared all eight churches in Parkersburg. Gary Hinders, whom the story describes as “a God-fearing man in a God-fearing town,” says that “he [doesn’t] believe it’s a coincidence that Thomas – a man known as much for his deep faith in Christianity as for his two state championships and 292-84 record – was gunned down. ‘You couldn’t pick anybody bigger in this town to shoot. That’s evil. … It’s spiritual warfare. Satan and God are fighting, and in the end I believe God will win.'”
This quote floored me and caused me to leave the webpage open for two weeks so I could reflect on it. I had never really seen someone quoted in the media who was so open and cognizant of the very true fact that there’s a ugly, spiritual warfare going on with very real consequences. And this was coming from a gentleman who knew the coach very well; he was not a random person who was hardly affected by this. The story also reports that, “[W]itnesses said the gunman ran out of the weight room shouting about the devil. ‘Before he got in his car and left, he was screaming about Satan and stuff, yelling random weird things out loud,’ Tiffany Frey, a 15-year-old student who pulled into the parking lot moments after the shooting, told the Des Moines Register. ‘Make sure Satan knows! Satan’s gotta know!'”
The story also makes the observation that Thomas’ “murder will test this community in a way no natural disaster could.” But based on what I’ve read so far, the townspeople are following the example of the man that suddenly left them. The story reports that on the following Sunday after the murder, when the pastor of the church where the Thomases and Beckers attended “prayed for forgiveness during the hour-long service, [forgiveness] already had come. The Thomases and Beckers had spoken earlier in the week, people close to the families said. And the coach’s younger son and wife urged people to pray for the Beckers, who would gain no closure when Ed Thomas’ casket was lowered into the ground.” Mark’s younger brother who was on the football team attended a special team meeting called by the assistant coaches a few days after the murder where “teammates approached him and offered consoling words, but Scott Becker, still shaken by the shooting, had little to say, according to those familiar with the meeting. But he’d mustered the courage to attend the meeting, and the other players welcomed him back.”
This tiny, no-stoplight town 80 miles northeast of Des Moines has been through a lot in the past year. Two major events threatened to tear it apart, but instead united it both times. Satan saw an opportunity to sow discord and chaos with this evil act of removing a pillar of a Christian community. But instead, out of the ground something even more powerful grew: forgiveness and reconciliation. The people of Parkersburg understood Paul’s words in Ephesians 6:12, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
In other words, like Gary Hinders said, “Satan and God are fighting, and in the end, God will win.”
– Matt
EphesiansGodIowaParkersburgSatanspiritual warfarewar
Spiritual Warfare is A Very Real Thing
July 9, 2009
Calvary
Comments Off on Spiritual Warfare is A Very Real Thing
Matt
On Sunday, May 25, 2008 between 5:30 and 6:15 p.m., a tornado about a mile wide with 205 mile per hour winds roared through Parkersburg, Iowa, a small town of less than 2,000 people. The tornado killed nine people, demolished 288 homes and wiped out one-third of the town. One of the structures that the tornado severely damaged was the Aplington-Parkersburg high school and its football field that the town affectionately knew as “The Sacred Acre.” This field was run by Ed Thomas, A-P’s football coach for over 37 years. In a book chronicling the personal stories from the tornado, Thomas wrote, “Our football field is our town square, the place where we connect with each other and with something greater than ourselves. It’s kind of like church that way. There’s a reason folks have nicknamed the field ‘The Sacred Acre.'” After the tornado hit, Coach Thomas was surprised to find people congregating around the football field. He wrote, “That’s when it struck me. It wasn’t just our team that had an all-for-one, one-for-all spirit. It was the whole town. … All my years of coaching, I preached strength and togetherness. Out here on the field, I was seeing that principle in action, like never before.”
According to many people in Parkersburg, Coach Thomas was the driving force that helped the town recover after the tornado. Despite the deep damage to the high school, Thomas rebuilt the football field, led his team to the state semifinals that same year, further establishing himself as an important pillar in the small Iowa community. So imagine the shock the town felt when they heard that on Wednesday, June 24, 2009, just a year after the tornado, Thomas was gunned down by Mark Becker, a 24-year-old man who was a former player and a brother of a current player.
According to Yahoo! Sports who wrote the story that brought this to my attention, Thomas had tried to counsel his alleged killer at the request of Becker’s family, which attends the same church where Thomas served as an elder. Many people in this town did not see this as a random occurrence just like the residents who believe it’s no accident the tornado spared all eight churches in Parkersburg. Gary Hinders, whom the story describes as “a God-fearing man in a God-fearing town,” says that “he [doesn’t] believe it’s a coincidence that Thomas – a man known as much for his deep faith in Christianity as for his two state championships and 292-84 record – was gunned down. ‘You couldn’t pick anybody bigger in this town to shoot. That’s evil. … It’s spiritual warfare. Satan and God are fighting, and in the end I believe God will win.'”
This quote floored me and caused me to leave the webpage open for two weeks so I could reflect on it. I had never really seen someone quoted in the media who was so open and cognizant of the very true fact that there’s a ugly, spiritual warfare going on with very real consequences. And this was coming from a gentleman who knew the coach very well; he was not a random person who was hardly affected by this. The story also reports that, “[W]itnesses said the gunman ran out of the weight room shouting about the devil. ‘Before he got in his car and left, he was screaming about Satan and stuff, yelling random weird things out loud,’ Tiffany Frey, a 15-year-old student who pulled into the parking lot moments after the shooting, told the Des Moines Register. ‘Make sure Satan knows! Satan’s gotta know!'”
The story also makes the observation that Thomas’ “murder will test this community in a way no natural disaster could.” But based on what I’ve read so far, the townspeople are following the example of the man that suddenly left them. The story reports that on the following Sunday after the murder, when the pastor of the church where the Thomases and Beckers attended “prayed for forgiveness during the hour-long service, [forgiveness] already had come. The Thomases and Beckers had spoken earlier in the week, people close to the families said. And the coach’s younger son and wife urged people to pray for the Beckers, who would gain no closure when Ed Thomas’ casket was lowered into the ground.” Mark’s younger brother who was on the football team attended a special team meeting called by the assistant coaches a few days after the murder where “teammates approached him and offered consoling words, but Scott Becker, still shaken by the shooting, had little to say, according to those familiar with the meeting. But he’d mustered the courage to attend the meeting, and the other players welcomed him back.”
This tiny, no-stoplight town 80 miles northeast of Des Moines has been through a lot in the past year. Two major events threatened to tear it apart, but instead united it both times. Satan saw an opportunity to sow discord and chaos with this evil act of removing a pillar of a Christian community. But instead, out of the ground something even more powerful grew: forgiveness and reconciliation. The people of Parkersburg understood Paul’s words in Ephesians 6:12, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
In other words, like Gary Hinders said, “Satan and God are fighting, and in the end, God will win.”
– Matt
Share this:
EphesiansGodIowaParkersburgSatanspiritual warfarewar