Article November 22, 2004 Issue

MODELS TO FOLLOW

In May 1974 Tom Boomershine, a Presbyterian pastor with two young sons, had recently finished his doctoral dissertation on the Gospel of Mark—had committed it to memory and was performing it as story. Deeply devoted to God and to his calling, Boomershine also loved playing sports.

Then an automobile accident put him into intensive care with predictions that he might not walk again. Those first six weeks, groggy with pain medicine, he couldn't read more than a few minutes at a time. But the Gospel's stories began to weave in thought, and he told them to himself over and over—particularly Jesus' healing of the paralytic (see Mark 2).

He was depressed and feeling useless, and those stories became a "model, but also a way of having Jesus with me and a way to receive forgiveness, acceptance, and hope." During daily bouts with excruciating pain and multiple fears, the stories took on new meaning. No longer simply stories to be honored, but events to experience. His months in casts and rehab sessions were tough, but Boomershine was having a daily resurrection in thought.

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