1988 - 2012
Louie was born in the winter of 1988. He left the many that loved him in the summer of 2012. So short a stay. So sad a parting. So great the breaking of a multitude of hearts - this evidenced at his wake. He came to us at Teen Challenge in the earlier part of this year. I’ll always remember the first time I saw him. I looked through the large office window into the conference room. There he sat alone. He had just gotten finished being processed in. His eyes were fixed on a student who was hugging a visitor out in the hallway. It was apparent how much he appreciated what he saw. I knew immediately that there was something special about Louie. Then as time went by it all began to unfold before me - not only to me but to all who came to know him, staff and students alike.
How was it that Louie was so special? Well, to start, he never discriminated when it came to who he’d choose to socialize with. I’ll put it this way. Usually when people find themselves in a setting where they have to intermingle, then much more than not will they gravitate to those who are like they are - who think the way they think, who share similar backgrounds, who have like interests, and so it goes. Whether it be on the job, institutionalized in some way, or whatever the case be, a person’s normal tendency is to seek out their own kind. It’s the case at Teen Challenge just as it is anywhere else. Teen Challenge is where I counsel and teach misguided men, and where Louie came to for help only some months ago. But as I already said, Louie wasn’t your everyday guy. He was different. Though the cliques formed, Louie spread himself around to everybody. He would even visit with the few loners we had then. He seemed to know how to relate to all; and genuinely did he care for them. Everybody loved Louie.
Louie had a heart of compassion. I remember the day that a man came to speak in the morning chapel hour. At some point in his sermon he mentioned how he and his family had fallen on hard times, and there was no guarantee they’d have a place to live the following week. Not long afterwards Louie left the chapel and came to the office. I was the only one there. He asked me if I’d let him take up an offering for the man. The only reply I could give was that senior staff alone could make that decision. And so he began searching for one of them, but to no avail. In the meanwhile the chapel hour had ended and the man had left. At that point most would have thought that they did all they could do but it just didn’t pan out. Not Louie. He ran into the right man, told him of the minister’s troubles, then asked if he had his cell phone number so that they could get him back. The plan was agreed to. When the man returned we put together a big load of grocery items for him and sent him happily on his way - all due to the big heart of a special young man.
If you’ve noticed, just saying the simple words I love you has become the thing to do today. More and more, whether it be in person or over the phone, people are ending the time they share together with those words - and that’s great. So often however you get the feeling that it’s being said just to be said. When Louie told you that he loved you, you knew that he did. It could be seen in him. And so I never had trouble returning those words.
Louie was very mature for his age. He always did what was asked of him and never with a word of complaint. Never did I see him react negatively in a situation that I’m sure he saw as adverse. In fact, I remember telling my wife about him one day. Much of what I told her were the things I’ve already shared. I ended it all with letting her know that if God would have seen fit to bless us with a third son, I would have wanted for him to be Louie Miceli.
Did Louie make mistakes? He did. Did he stumble in the end? No doubt. And did he fall? All who knew him learned of his terribly unfortunate end. At only twenty-four years of age Louie was struck down, and on the great battlefield of the Lord did he succumb. But now I become minded of a very great man - a man who also made mistakes with some weighty consequences to follow. Old Testament Israel knew him as king David. David clearly had a tendency to steer himself in the wrong direction during crucial times in his life. Yet there was something that David embodied that caused his God to love him greatly through it all. That “something” was that his heart was right before the One who he ever worshiped and adored. And this was why he was after the heart of God. It was none other than his Creator who testified of that.
I happen to believe that despite wrong decisions made, Louie Miceli also walked with a right heart, and that before the Lord, who he truly knew and loved. I therefore am convinced that today he sits with the Son of God at the right hand of Power and in the highest heaven. There with every believer who has gone on before does he intercede for his brothers who remain upon the earth, doing battle and waging war against the darkness. And with his heart of love and compassion that his God alone had fashioned in him, will he intercede until the great gathering together of the body of Christ in the kingdom of God - a kingdom unlike no other. Through all eternity its end will not be found, but only its reign.
J. Pecoraro
