Our country first heard those now-famous words thirty-seven years ago today–April 13, 1970. On that day, an explosion occurred aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft, which was en route to a lunar landing. The explosion crippled the spacecraft, causing the command module to lose its oxygen and electrical power. The three-man crew aboard Apollo 13 used the Lunar Module as a “lifeboat” in space. They endured difficult and terrifying conditions. Eventually, however, thanks to the ingenuity and creativity of the folks at NASA, the crew successfully returned to earth after a harrowing ordeal. The crew members (Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise) were not able to walk on the moon. But they were able to navigate their way back home when the odds were severely against them.
Thirty-seven years ago today, Commander Jim Lovell announced the crisis with these simple words: “Houston, we have a problem.” Actually, the precise rendering of the words was this: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”
The events of the Apollo 13 mission are well-chronicled in the 1995 film APOLLO 13, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton. In the film, Jim Lovell (played by Hanks) offers the following monologue, recounting what, for him, was a life-altering experience during World War II. I am uncertain of the monologue’s historicity. In the film, however, the monologue brings a much-needed expression hope concerning the ability to find one’s way home:
Uh well, I’ll tell ya, I remember this one time - I’m in a Banshee at night in combat conditions, so there’s no running lights on the carrier. It was the Shrangri-La, and we were in the Sea of Japan and my radar had jammed, and my homing signal was gone… because somebody in Japan was actually using the same frequency. And so it was - it was leading me away from where I was supposed to be. And I’m lookin’ down at a big, black ocean, so I flip on my map light, and then suddenly: zap. Everything shorts out right there in my cockpit. All my instruments are gone. My lights are gone. And I can’t even tell now what my altitude is. I know I’m running out of fuel, so I’m thinking about ditching in the ocean. And I, I look down there, and then in the darkness there’s this uh, there’s this green trail. It’s like a long carpet that’s just laid out right beneath me. And it was the algae, right? It was that phosphorescent stuff that gets churned up in the wake of a big ship. And it was - it was - it was leading me home. You know? If my cockpit lights hadn’t shorted out, there’s no way I’d ever been able to see that. So uh, you, uh, never know… what… what events are to transpire to get you home.
What a wonderful expression of the mystery and profundity of God’s providence: “You never know what events are to transpire to get you home.”
It makes me think of the Apostle Paul’s counsel to the Roman church: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). The nuances of this scripture are important to note, I think. It is not “all things ARE good,” but rather, “all things WORK TOGETHER FOR good.” In the Greek, the verb utilized here to convey “working together” is a verb that connotes an uncommon partnering of circumstances, a cooperation of events that cannot be thwarted by any other force. In other words (if I might generate an intersection between cinema and Scripture), the Apostle Paul is essentially communicating to us a word of radical theological hope that sounds something like the word of hope communicated by Jim Lovell in APOLLO 13: “You never know what events are to transpire–or work together–to get you home.”
I am grateful for the story of the Apollo 13 mission and the inspiration that such a story brings, even thirty-seven years later. I am grateful for the events of my own life, even the ones that are painful and difficult to understand. Most of all, I am grateful for the sovereign God of the universe, who is bringing those events into a providential cooperation, the purpose of which is to “get me home” to where God would have me to be.
For along time I didn’t want to hear that verse from Romans. I was hurt, angry and despondent and nothing in my life was good.
Things changed for me when I started seeing the new things God had brought to my life, despite depression. I had a better marriage, a stronger bond with my kids and a sense of calling to halp others with my disease.
Understanding that helped me to see that it was good, not because I suffered, but because God was leading me all along…helping me discover the way back home. Great post!
Check out the KDKA website for the video on Amy Palmiero Winters - a marathon runner who has had some challenges that changed her life.