Dark Portals

Last night, I got the news that my former roommate and friend, Mark McClure, passed away over the weekend.

I met Mark just as I was graduating high school. He had found a Bible while in prison, converted to Christianity, and connected with my friend Kurt through skateboarding. Mark was a gifted skateboarder, and eventually he joined a skateboard ministry that Kurt started and my friend Carl later led. Before long, Carl, Mark, Elliott Liske, and I were leading it together. Those were some of the most exciting years of my life.

We would load up a 24-foot Ryder truck with ramps, rails, and whatever else we could cram into it and travel all over America. We held huge skate outreaches where hundreds of kids would come to skate and hear the gospel. We spent countless hours on the road together. Looking back now, it feels like a lifetime ago. We were young men convinced that the gospel could change the world, and in many ways it was changing ours.

Mark and I eventually became roommates. He was a reader, much like I was. We had a television in our condo, but we rarely used it. We spent our evenings reading books, talking theology, and looking for opportunities to share the gospel.

One of my favorite memories of Mark was after we rented and watched The Matrix. We got so fired up that we decided we were going to go out and tell people that the gospel was the truth that could wake them up from the lies of the world. So we jumped in my car and headed out with no real plan other than to find someone to talk to about Jesus.

Somewhere along the highway we picked up a hitchhiker. He was drunk and told us he had gotten into a fight with his girlfriend at a bar on the west side of town and had been walking for miles. We asked where he lived and discovered he was only a couple of miles from our condo, so we drove him home.

The next thing I knew, Mark and I were sitting in the living room of a complete stranger, explaining the gospel and calling him to repent and believe in Christ. Then, all of a sudden, the front door flew open. His girlfriend stormed in, cussing and demanding to know where he had been. She stopped, looked at us sitting there, completely confused, and said, “Who the hell are you guys?”

The man answered, “These are the guys here to tell us about Jesus.”

It was one of the most surreal moments of my life.

Looking back, I had dozens of experiences like that with Mark. We were always inviting people over to our condo, stopping to talk to strangers, opening our lives to people who were struggling, and looking for opportunities to tell them about Christ. It was a wild time.

Over time, I discovered that Mark had a serious problem with alcohol. Our friend group confronted him about it, and to his credit, he repented. But it would be a struggle that he’d often fall into. It would disappear for a season and then return.

I was privileged to officiate Mark’s wedding to Nicole. It was only the second wedding I had ever performed. We held it at Woodland Mound Park on the east side of Cincinnati. At the reception, they danced to “Patience” by Guns N’ Roses.

I mean this with affection and sincerity, despite how it may sound: it was a white-trash wedding, and I could relate to it completely. These were my people.

Mark and I both came from broken families. His was probably more broken than mine. We were both trying to outrun something. We both knew there were patterns behind us that had swallowed up people we loved: addiction, divorce, laziness, despair. We could see the wreckage scattered behind previous generations, and neither of us wanted that future.

The best way I know to describe it is that some families seem to have a gravitational pull toward self-destruction. It is like a dark portal that keeps trying to drag generation after generation back into itself. You can feel it pulling at you. You can spend years trying to put distance between yourself and it, only to discover that it never entirely stops calling your name. Some people escape it. Some don’t.

By my late twenties, Mark and I had largely gone different directions. He attended my first church plant for a while, but eventually life carried us down separate paths.

Then last year Nicole died in a tragic accident. Mark woke up to discover that she had bled to death in their home while he slept deeply after drinking heavily the night before. It was a horrific thing to endure, and naturally he was consumed with guilt.

During the last several months, we talked more than we had in years. Having walked through my own share of death, I had some idea of the road ahead of him. We prayed together. We talked often. We discussed grief, regret, guilt, and hope. I was thankful that there were people around him who loved him and were trying to help him find solid ground again.

In particular, my friend Elliott Liske poured himself out for Mark. Elliott loved him faithfully during one of the darkest periods of his life. He listened. He encouraged. He showed up. He prayed. He did the kind of quiet work that rarely gets noticed but often means everything to a hurting man.

But in the end, Mark was unable to escape that dark pull. That portal finally caught him.

Where was Mark with the Lord? Only God knows with certainty. I know that he professed faith in Christ. I know that he never denied Christ with his lips and loved church. Beyond that, I leave him in the hands of a merciful and righteous Judge.

What I do know is that our old friend group has suffered more tragedy than seems possible. Carl died in a house fire alongside some of his children. Nicole died in her accident. Another friend, Stella, had an accidental overdose that didn’t seem like an accident to most of us. And now Mark.

I am not against people caring about national issues. There's just a lot of battles happening in the world right in front of you.

There are neighborhoods, towns, and entire pockets of America where despair hangs over people like a thick fog. Addiction has hollowed out families. Loneliness has become normal. Men and women are haunted by their childhood into their adulthood. Some have simply stopped believing that a different future is possible.

These battles rarely make the news, but they are everywhere. They have names and faces. They are happening to people we grew up with, people we worshiped beside, people we shared meals with, people we loved.

If you are in that darkness right now, if despair feels like it is closing in around you, if addiction has convinced you that escape is impossible, please reach out to someone. Call a friend. Call your pastor. Walk into a church. Ask for help. Do not suffer alone.

The lie despair tells is that nobody cares and that nothing will ever change. Neither is true. There is hope in Christ.

And as I think about Mark, I find myself especially thankful for men like Elliott Liske. Men who answer the phone. Men who show up when everyone else disappears. Men who sit with the grieving. Men who refuse to abandon their friends in the darkness.

We need more men like that. And we need to be more like that ourselves. Give yourself to your people and places. Love your neighbor.