Humility

This Thanksgiving weekend, I took a brief little road trip with Grandaddy, Mom, Dad, and my sister to Erin, TN.  This was the second Thanksgiving without my Granny (mom's side) and it's been over five without my Grandmother (Dad's side).  We explored some sites of historical significance to our family.  Pictured here is the cabin where my great-great grandmother (Grandaddy's granny) once lived:

It's even more rustic on the inside than this picture might suggest.  It's got about three rooms and the stable in the rear.  Less than a mile up the hill from the cabin is the old family cemetery which contains about five graves, one of them being a twelve-year-old boy who died in the 1950s and the other holding the body of my great-great-great grandmother who was born in the 1830s, lived through the Civil War, and died in the 1890s.

I've never had any interest in family genealogy; my brain has a hard time visualizing relatives who I never had the pleasure of knowing in life.  It is very hard for me to imagine my grandparents being young and having grandparents of their own.  But, where I am, they once were.  It's strange to take a few minutes and walk the same places where they used to walk years ago.  I can't imagine living in a three room cabin that, in spite of its rickety appearance, has apparently withstood over a century of wear by the natural world.

Seeing places like this remind me of how my family was able to make due with so little for so many years.  People like my grandaddy were born into humble circumstances, grew up in tiny towns working humble jobs, and then got drafted into the armed services during World War II which took them to some of the most exotic places on earth before they even turned twenty-one.  When their service was over, they returned home to places like Erin and picked up with real-life.  Much of my family moved to Detroit to get work in the auto industry, build families, and then retired back to their Tennessee hometowns to live out their golden years.

I can't imagine what it must have been like to grow up in rural Tennessee during the 1800s or the early 1900s, but my family did it for generations.  They didn't have a lot of possessions, but they did have each other and faith in God, and that was enough.  Children died young and those who survived had to grow up fast.  When you have childhood so brief, I guess it only makes sense that it's important to hold onto those memories and pass them onto future generations.  Soaking in such sights, I'm humbled to the point that I never have any words of insight to add.  But it certainly makes me thankful for all that I have in life and all that has come before me to make me into the person I am today.

A Year with Easter on my Mind

Anyone who has read any of my blog posts from last year can probably discern that 2012 was a hard and emotionally tring year for me.  Throughout most of my struggles and sorrows of that year, however, the one particular passage of Scripture sustained me more than any other was Psalm 22.  Before 2012, my mind rarely associated that psalm with Easter, but now it's become one of the most important points of reference for when I think about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I suppose I have to credit my newfound appreciation for Psalm 22 to a brief comment made by Russell D. Moore on his Cross & the Jukebox session on Johnny Cash.  Moore referenced the importance of Jesus' quotation of Psalm 22:1 ("my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?") as some of his final words upon the Cross (and somehow Moore tied the whole thing together beautifully with Johnny Cash's own life story). As terrible a picture of suffering as Psalm 22 paints in its first twenty verses, it nevertheless concludes with an abundance of praises toward God for His goodness and salvation.  And the pivotal point of the psalm occurs at verse 21, where the psalmist confesses to God that "You have heard me!" (the Hebrew word is often translated as "rescue" but "heard" is the literal sense).  The same concept is again present in verse 24: "He has listened to his cry for help."  David, whose name is attached to this psalm, trusted in God to deliver him out of his afflictions, as did many generations of the people of Israel.  But when Jesus on the Cross identified himself with Psalm 22, He didn't have only verse 1 in mind but verse 21 as well.  Jesus knew that His Father had heard his cries and that, even though God's presence appeared to be far away at the time, the Father would not ultimately abandon His Son to death and decay.  And in the great resurrection event of that first Easter Sunday, God the Father proved that He had heard the cries of God the Son and had answered the Holy One with decisive vindication.

Over the past year, I have realized that the only reason why any of us are able to praise God in spite of whatever tough times we might be going through is because Jesus Christ has identified Himself with us in our sin and suffering.  God the Father gave our Lord the victory that is now reserved for those of us who trust in Christ alone for salvation.  God the Father was pleased to accept righteous suffering of Christ as an all-sufficient substitute for sinners like me.  And in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, those who have trusted in Christ have assurance that God will raise them up from the depths of suffering and the grave (in the words of 1 Corinthians 15:20-21).

On April 11 of last year (three days after Easter Sunday of 2012), I led a Wednesday night Bible study on Psalm 22 with two of our church ladies both in their eighties.  I got pressed for time and only made it through half of the chapter.  A few months later, I got a another opportunity to lead a Wednesday night study, and I again repeated the lesson and made it through the entire psalm.  I don't know how much of a lasting impression it left on the folks at the study, but it the psalm sure did leave a great impact on me.  I began to yearn for the opportunity to transition my study notes into a more proper sermon outline, and when my Granny's health began to fail again during late Spring I began to consider the idea of using Psalm 22 as the biblical anchor for her funeral sermon which my family requested I deliver upon her eventual passing.  Ultimately, the personal burden proved to be too weighty for me to find a way to do full justice to Psalm 22, so I instead choose Hebrews 4:14-16 (Christ being our high priest who is able to sympathize fully with our human weaknesses) to be the biblical centrifuge of my Granny's eulogy.

This year, my home church back in Camden invited me to deliver the sermons for their Easter services.  I only had about a week's time of preparation, but I realized I\it was the perfect opportunity to prepare that much desired sermon on Psalm 22.  I didn't make any personal reference to my Granny's suffering in my actual sermon but that reality has always been on my mind.  Throughout Jesus' earthly ministry, He showed compassion to sinful and suffering people bringing them temporary healing.  But in Jesus' sacrificial death on the Cross, He identified himself absolutely with the very worst of the human condition.  All the terrible pain that my Granny suffered prior to her death last year was nailed to that Cross alongside Jesus. I don't know what sort of tribulation might await me in my future, but all that stuff unknown to me at this time was also nailed to that Cross alongside Jesus.  The consequences of sin will ultimately drag all flesh into the grave, but praise God that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ on that first Easter Sunday, we have blessed assurance that God has heard us, and He has promised to raise us again.

Even though 2012 held a lot of tough times for my family, it's good to know that even when God's presence seems far away and the troubles of the present seem very near, God has promised that He has not hidden His face from his people.  He has proved his faithfulness to us in the cross and the empty tomb.  And that's why I've had Easter on my mind all year long.

I haven't figured out the proper way to stream audio via Blogspot interface, but my Easter 2013 sermon can be downloaded here if anyone is interested:
"The Cross, the God-Forsaken, and the Empty Tomb" Psalm 22

The Promise I Made as a Boy

I got to head down to Tennessee this weekend to celebrate my Grandaddy's ninetieth birthday (he actually turns 90 on Wednesday, but we celebrated early).  I've written before about my relationship with him and how much I really want to spend as much time as I can with him from now on out.  Needless to say, it was pretty great getting to celebrate his very long life with him again... even if it was a little bittersweet due to the loss of my Granny in late July.

After we celebrated Grandaddy's party at McEwen's "Stagecoach" restaurant we drove up the road to Erin, TN where we visited my (great) Uncle Howard Patterson in the nursing home to celebrate his ninetieth birthday as well.  Uncle Howard is my Granny's brother, and he has always been my favorite uncle because he's long had such a gigantic personality.  He has always been so loud and unpredictable in his remarks, surprisingly funny, but always kind and charming.  He killed hogs and raised beagles.  I think he's the quintessential small-town Tennessean.  In recent years, however, he's had more than his fair-share of health difficulties.  He has long since lost the ability to care for himself and is now confined to a wheelchair.  He has very few memories left, and cannot recall names and faces of close friends and family that he's known for decades.  Fortunately, however, God has still left him with his loud, unpredictable, joyful, cut-up personality.  As my dad likes to say, "He doesn't have his memory, but he's still Uncle Howard."

Uncle Howard, aka "Water Dog"

It was nice to be able to get the (aging) family together to celebrate with cake and presents with him.  But I must confess that simply being in that nursing home both saddened me and scared me.  All through the hallways and the bingo hall, elderly and disabled folks rolled around in their motorized wheelchairs.  A sweet but bewildered older woman rolled up to our party area and wanted to know if her glasses had arrived yet.  The bathrooms could only be entered with a very precise key code.  No one could enter or exit the building unless the attendant first unlocked the door.  The whole time we were there, a haunting rendition of Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe" looped endlessly on the single stanza: "I got you to hold my hand, I got you to understand" out of one of the rooms; I couldn't help but recognize the cruel and eery irony in that.

I have respect for anyone who chooses to work and serve in a nursing home for the love of the people.  And I know that Uncle Howard is often visited by family, but I wondered just how many of those other folks had family or friends to come see them often... if at all. 

Years ago, when I was very young and probably still in middle school, Mom made me promise that if something tragic every happened to her and Dad, that I would do everything I could to make sure that Granny and Grandaddy never ended up in a nursing home.  It was a terrifying notion for a kid as young as myself to even fathom.  But this weekend, I understood why my Mom was so insistent that I make her that promise.  I've always felt that somehow my grandparents were uniquely my responsibility to protect and care for.  Even when I went off to college and seminary, I returned home during the summers and spent most of my time over at their house, mostly relaxing and goofing off, but also being ready to do whatever they asked of me.  They raised me almost as much as my parents did, and spending time with them in their last years was the very least that I could do. 

In the end, Mom was the one who really made the sacrifice to care for Granny in her last days.  Throughout all the months that Granny resided in hospitals, rehab centers, and hospices, I don't think Mom ever went home to sleep in her own bed except for very rare occasions.  Granny ultimately died in her own home, not fully conscious of the fact that she was surrounded by family, but she nonetheless died quietly and (so I am told) with a smile on her face. 

Even though God didn't call me to make that particular sacrifice, I still feel responsible for Grandaddy.  He was the first one I visited when I drove in from Louisville.  I had planned to eat with him, and then head back home to Camden.  But Grandaddy said he'd rather me stay with him instead.  I had no regrets honoring that request.  It was my birthday present to him; one that I'll try to repackage as much as I possibly can.

May 2005

May 2012

Late in the Game, but Still Making Memories

"Cherish every moment with the important people in your life as if it might be the last one, but go ahead and make future plans with them anyway." -[Something I thought up a few years ago]

This weekend I drove down to Tennessee to drive my soon-to-be ninety-year-old Grandaddy around Camden's 15th annual "30 Mile Yard Sale."  It's been an annual tradition for our family to set up sales in the garage while I take Grandaddy around town looking for dirt-cheap deals on rusty metal (among other things).  He uses a cane for precaution and for when his legs get tired, but he can get along fine without it.

This year, I was fully conscious of the fact that I probably won't get very many opportunities to continue this tradition in the future.  Grandaddy has had Parkinson's Disease for nearly a decade, but he still possesses enough strength to maintain a fairly normal life and is still able to do many of the same routine things he has done throughout his life.  The last two years, however, have taken its emotional toil on him on account of my Granny's long sickness and eventual death late in July.  Grandaddy lives alone in heartbreak, but he hasn't given up because he still treasures the time he gets to spend with the rest of our family.

My mother is the only child of Granny and Grandaddy's sixty-five-year marriage, and my sister and I are their only grandchildren.  Needless to say, they pretty much tried to spoil us at every opportunity (not so much in the early years, but considerably more-so since I went off to college in 2001).  I cherish every opportunity I have to make a few more memories with Grandaddy for as long as the Lord gives him health and life.

I told him at Granny's funeral that I want him to live as long as possible.  I suppose that was a somewhat selfish request on my part, but I just can't imagine life without a grandparent, and he's my last one left.  Even though he gets around well, I tried to stay close to him at the yard sales, because I was so worried he might trip on a tree root or slip in some loose dirt.  He almost tripped trying to go underneath a scaffold to avoid some rain, but he caught himself (the old man still probably thinks he's only 75 at times).  Nothing makes me feel old like watching out for the folks who raised me as if they themselves were large children.

After I graduated from college, I was frustrated that so much of my life routine still felt the same as it always did.  I wanted to move on with life.  But now life seems to be changing awfully fast.  I'm watching my elder relatives grow old, suffer, and die.  I've experienced the loss of some great friends, and a few more friends have had some close calls.  But I won't lose heart either.  I serve a God who isn't surprised by anything, and I worship a Savior who has identified himself with the most pitiful point of the human condition.  I don't fear the sorrowful days that surely await me in the future, but I just don't want them to happen anytime soon.  If there is one thing I've learned about relationships in recent years, it's that you really have to make the most of the time God has given you with the people you love the most.