A Prophet’s Journey Through Midnight

By Mickarl D. Thomas Sr. DMin MPA

Mickarl D. Thomas Sr. chronicles the challenges he’s overcome in A Prophets Journey through Midnight.

As an asthmatic child, he lost two brothers before being born and was left to wonder why he was spared. While he grew up with loving parents and siblings, his father was illiterate.

More challenges would loom—none worse than the death of his son, Mikey, at age seventeen. The words, “Mikey was killed,” reverberate in his soul every day. When he received the news, he fell on his knees before throwing an exercise machine at the bedroom window. Then he tried to jump.
His harrowing journey also involved a divorce, a battle with prostate cancer, and contending with the death of his parents.
In this book, he shares the pain of going through so many ordeals and also looks back at the obstacles he overcame during forty-five years in pastoral ministry. Throughout, he shares his belief that no matter what takes place in life, God is in charge. As Psalm 22:8 declares, “For the kingdom is the Lord’s, and He rules over the nations.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781664258402

Mickarl D. Thomas Sr. DMin MPA

Mickarl D. Thomas Sr. DMin, MPA has spent more than forty-five years in pastoral ministry. His ability to cope with family challenges, health issues, and ecclesiastical struggles will inspire and motivate readers.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Theological Reflections

My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, And from the words of My groaning?

—PSALM 22:1

O n Saturday, June 14, 2007, at approximately 4:00 a.m., the telephone rang in the parsonage of Mount Pisgah AME Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My wife, Ann, and I were awakened from our sleep. Ann answered the phone, and after a few seconds, her face pale, she handed me the phone. On the other line was Rev. Gregory Groover, the pastor of the Historic Charles Street AME Church in Boston, Massachusetts, who followed me as pastor in 1994. Rev. Groover was attending a church meeting for the First Episcopal District of the AME Church in Philadelphia. He had received a phone call from Boston and was now conveying the contents of that call tome.

Mickarl, this is Pastor Groover. I knew something was wrong for him to call so early in the morning.

Yes, Pastor, what’s going on?

There has been an automobile accident, Mickarl, involving one of your children.

Which one? I asked.

Mikey, Pastor Groover said.

Is he going to be OK?

Mickarl, Mikey was killed!

Those words, Mikey was killed, reverberate in my soul every day. I fell on my knees, and my wife tried to console me. I jumped up from my knees, threw an exercise machine at the bedroom window, and tried to jump. My wife pulled me back and just held me as I uncontrollably wept. That was the beginning of my midnight journey.

I called a good friend, Bob Wright, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and told him the horrific news I had just received. He and his family had just suffered a home fire, but he said to me, Doc, we will see you in Boston.

Bishop Philip R. Cousin, my judicatory head, was called at home, and he offered prayer. My mother and father, Daniel and Verlenia Thomas, were called in Detroit. They called my sisters Macie and Santranella as well as my aunt Mat. My wife notified other friends and relatives as well as some officers in the church I currently was pastoring. Arrangements were made to get a flight from Philadelphia to Boston late that morning. Two of my ministerial colleagues, Rev. Terrence Hensforth, of Philadelphia, and Rev. Donald Luster, of East Orange, New Jersey, came to the house. Both were attending a church meeting. Two stewards of the church I was pastoring came by to offer their condolences and assistance. The journey from Philadelphia to Boston was a painful experience, and truly, I was traveling at midnight.

When we arrived in Boston, we were met by our cousin, Rev. Joseph Washington, who was pastoring in New Rochelle, New York, and a dear friend, Paul Johnson, who was the chief of Harvard University Police Department. Paul and his wife, Louise, were gracious enough to allow my wife and me to stay with them as we prepared for and held the funeral for Mikey. This dynamic couple was exceptional in receiving our friends and relatives and preparing sumptuous meals for them.

The first stop was the morgue. The coroner tried to wait for me to arrive before doing the postmortem evaluation; however, I was arriving too late. It took some persuading, but eventually they allowed me to see my son. Looking at Mikey lying on the gurney was the worst experience of my life. This was the son who had always been with me. I took him to his first football practice (Pop Warner). We would hang on Sundays together. We had gone to two major church meetings (General Conferences) together.

Now I was looking at my son on the gurney. I was hoping I was having a nightmare, and I asked God to allow me to die. Lord, please not my son! My entire immediate family, as well as Mikey’s mother’s immediate family, came to the funeral. Included in this group were my aunt Mat and her daughter Mary as well as my oldest daughter’s godfather (and my dear friend) Charles Moore. The outpouring of love was unbelievable. Many of the members of Charles Street AME Church opened their homes and received my out-of-town guests.

Several members of the Norristown Superbowl Club, of which I was a charter member and my friend Bob Wright was the president, came to the funeral. Other family and friends came, and some will be discussed in a later chapter.

Joe Carter, who was a superintendent with the Boston Police Department, made all the special arrangements with the police department. They left no stone unturned as it related to providing efficient, courteous, professional services for the funeral. I had served as the Protestant chaplain with the police department for twelve years, and they really gave my son, Mikey, the royal treatment.

Sunday evening, while in the bedroom of the Johnsons’ home alone for a few moments, I began to reflect, theologically, on what was happening in my life. I remembered being a little boy, around six years old, and finding out there were two brothers born before me who died in infancy. One was stillborn, and the other lived for a month and twenty-one days. One of the brothers had been named for my father, Daniel, and that was the reason I was not a junior. The death of my brothers bothered me, even as a young boy. I was a sickly child, diagnosed with chronic asthma at nine months, and at this time was suffering with eczema and hay fever. Because of my health challenges, I would miss many days of school and had not learned to swim like many of my friends. I was also obese and suffered severe asthma attacks, especially in the summer. I raised the question at age six, Why did I live and my brothers die? Since I was so sickly, maybe I also should have died, God.

This I raised to myself because my mother was very religious and believed you could not question God. My mother had been raised Methodist, and my father was a Primitive Baptist, and he strongly believed in predestination. As a result, his answer to everything was It’s God’s will.

Why did I live? Unbeknown to me, I was engaging in some theological questions at a young age. The same question had now resurfaced. Why did I live and Mikey was killed? Mikey had been at a party and had socialized too much. Not being rational, he took a friend’s car and was driving at an excessive speed. Mikey lost control of the car and hit a stone wall. The impact and airbag crushed his body. There had been a multiplicity of times, as a young man in Detroit, I had driven with an unclear head. Why did You spare me, God, and take my son at seventeen? I wish You had taken me and let my son live.

Even though I had been pastoring for more than twenty years and had my master of divinity and doctor of ministry degrees, I was struggling theologically. I felt like the psalmist in Psalm 22:1, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?

Some significant occurrences began to take place. First, I reflected on my days at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and my classes in theology with Dr. John Diamond and Dr. Henry Young. Dr. Young was my paradigm of a gifted theologian. As I pondered on courses I had taken in theology and ethics, I found myself with a plethora of questions and no answers. I really believed that even though I was suffering and without answers, God was still with me; I remembered the latter portion of Psalm 22:26: The poor shall eat and be satisfied; Those who seek Him will praise the Lord. Let your heart live forever.

God is in charge! No matter what takes place in our lives, God is in charge. Psalm 22:8 declares, For the kingdom is the Lord’s, And He rules over the nations. With the advancements in science and technology, there are too many persons who want to praise humans more and not praise the Lord. I do not care how intelligent and sophisticated we become, it is prudent to remember God is in charge. Believing God is in charge did not remove the abundance of questions that continued to plague me. In the words of Dr. Gardner C. Taylor, if we have all the answers, then we are equal to God, and this is not the case. There is a qualitative and quantitative distinction between divinity and humanity.

I was worried about Mikey’s sisters as well as very concerned about their mother, because I knew she was distraught. I wanted to offer them words of encouragement and at the same time express my appreciation to my wife, Ann, who had been a tremendous other mother to Mikey. Mikey lived with us the first year of our marriage. It was only because he did not want to leave his twin sister, Michelle, that he remained in the Boston area and did not move to Philadelphia when we did.

I tried to construct a theological system and develop concepts I had learned. I began to reflect on Kierkegaard’s Leap of Faith, Moltmann’s Theology of Hope, and the words of Jesus, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Matthew 5:4). I could barely walk, let alone leap. It seemed as if I was in a hopeless situation. The divorce had been traumatic enough, but now the death of my son. All I could do was lean on the words of Jesus, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Matthew 5:4). No matter how much I tried to intellectualize the midnight situation I was encountering, relief escaped my being.

As a student at Turner Theological Seminary, a part of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, I was blessed to hear some of the great preachers in various denominations. On a few occasions, Dr. Martin Luther King Sr. (Daddy King) would preach. A feeling of euphoria would come over me, watching a man who had lost two sons and a wife proclaim his faith in the Lord. I would say to myself after each sermon Daddy King would preach, There must be something to having faith in the Lord.

During this period of acute contemplation, I began to reflect on the many eulogies I had preached at funerals. During my undergraduate studies at Wayne State University, in Detroit, Michigan, I was the youth pastor and acting interim assistant at Ebenezer AME Church, pastored by Dr. Fred E. Stephens. After my first ordination, as an itinerant deacon, I had to officiate at some funerals when Dr. Stephens was out of town.

There were two funerals that were occupying my mind. One weekend, Pastor Stephens was out of town and left general instructions for me to carry out my tasks at the church. Often, he would leave the schedule for preachers if he was going to miss a Sunday. It was during this particular weekend I had an unforgettable experience. I was to officiate and preach my first funeral. The father of my good friend Charles Moore, Mr. Joe Acie Moore, had been killed. Charles had been responsible for me coming to Ebenezer AME Church.

Charles Moore’s father, Mr. Clifford Moore Sr., worked in an automobile plant in Detroit and had another job as a security officer. One Sunday morning, he was working a detail at a supermarket. A robbery ensued, and everyone was told not to move. Mr. Moore did not know what was going on and turned to ask a question. It was at this moment Mr. Moore was shot and killed.

One might say it was fortuitous Pastor Stephens was out of town when this incident took place, because he did not allow funerals of nonmembers to be held at the church. After the Sunday service, I went to the Moores’ home and met family members and members of Ebenezer Church. Mrs. Moore, understandably, was distraught, and I promised her I would do all I could to assist the family. There were two pressing matters. First, Charles was on a stealth mission aboard a navy aircraft carrier. Second, Pastor Stephens had a policy that a nonmember of the church could not be buried from the church, even if other family members were members of the church.

The first thing I did was call the Red Cross for assistance in locating Charles. They had difficulty because he was on a covert mission. I then called a city council member, Mr. Ernest Brown, who had always been very supportive of his constituency. I’m not sure what he did; however, within less than a half hour, the United States Pentagon called the Moores’ home and gave the time and flight number for Charles’s flight. I, along with another close friend of Charles, Jimmie Robinson, met Charles at the airport the next day.

Returning to the church on Sunday afternoon, I met with a steward and trustee explaining that Mr. Moore’s funeral was going to be very large and the family wanted the funeral at the church. I knew Pastor Stephens’s position, but I was close to the family, and I did not know how to say no. Mr. John Dortch, the steward, and Mr. John Holland, the trustee, gave me permission to grant the Moore family their wish and informed me they would talk to Pastor Stephens.

I tried to preach a good eulogy. I knew the family well. Charles’s parents were from Alabama, and so were my parents. Charles and I had eaten at each other’s homes, and the band I had been a member of played for his sister’s wedding reception. I was a drummer, and music would play a major role in my journey through midnight.

Not long after the funeral of Mr. Joe Acie Moore, I had another heart-wrenching experience. This time it concerned a pretty little girl, LaJewel White, who would come to church every Sunday with her mother. Every Sunday following service, I would stand in the foyer of the church, with Pastor Stephens, and shake hands with the members of Ebenezer. LaJewel White, always came by with her mother. LaJewel was about seven years old, with long, thick, braided black hair, and I would pull the braids and give her a hug.

It was early on a Saturday morning; the telephone rang at my parents’ home. My mother answered the phone. She always called me Mike, and while being in a daze, I heard her say, Mike, telephone. I got out of bed and went into my parents’ bedroom to answer the phone. There was a member of Ebenezer telling me to come to the Whites’ home immediately because LaJewel had died that morning. I was shocked and hurt. The Whites lived two minutes from my parents’ home on Linsdale Street. I dressed in a hurry and went to the home of LaJewel. Mrs. White was almost in shock and was waiting for her husband to come home from work.

Mr. White arrived and was told LaJewel was dead. He began to weep, and I was doing all I could to assist church members in consoling the parents and LaJewel’s big brother, Ray.

LaJewel had awakened early Saturday morning and complained of not feeling well. She went into her mother’s room. Mrs. White was rocking her and attempted to give her some water. It was determined that LaJewel had what was known as three-day pneumonia, and her lungs gave way.

Someone had to officially identify LaJewel’s body at the morgue. Mr. White asked me to drive him to the morgue. When we arrived, after a short wait, we went into a room, where they placed the body of LaJewel on a gurney in front of a window. While we were standing in another room, an attendant pulled the curtains, and there was that pretty, little girl with the long hair. After the positive identification, some basic questions had to be answered by Mr. White.

Fortunately, I had brought some basic information with us and assisted him in answering the questions.

This was my second funeral, but I tried to offer some words of hope and encouragement to the family. To my dismay, I realize now I was using standard grieving phrases, which were no more than empty rhetoric. She is in a better place. God is too wise to make a mistake. These clichés might be valid, but they do very little to help many people during their midnight journey. In my doctor of ministry thesis, I talked about the ministry of presence. The ministry of presence is when you do not have to have answers or even use much rhetoric, but your mere presence, in a tragic situation, can bring comfort to an individual and family.

As these two events kept plaguing my mind, there was one question that kept reverberating in my soul. Do you believe what you have been telling others? In other words, you must take your own medicine.

CHAPTER 2

Taking Your Own Medicine

So, David’s anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, the man who has done this [a]shall surely die! And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity. Then Nathan said to David, You are the man!

—2 SAMUEL 12:5–7

D avid, the great king of Israel, succumbed to his carnal weakness and took the wife of Uriah, Bathsheba, to be his wife. David observed Bathsheba bathing one day and was overcome by her beauty. He inquired as to her marital status and found ought she was married to a soldier, Uriah, in his army. David had Uriah placed on the front line, and Uriah was killed in battle. The prophet Nathan went to David and used an