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.

I'm Thankful for This Year... of Suffering

I am thankful for being able to know suffering this year on an unprecedented scale from what I had known previously.

I know that sounds bizarre, and I don't want to give the impression that I enjoy suffering in any sense.  I hate death.  I despise everything about it, everything it has done to people I love, and what it will eventually do to me one day. I hate the fact that we live in a fallen world where suffering and death are inevitable.  Whether it comes suddenly (like the loss of my church friends) or slowly (in the case of my Granny), death is a terrible, terrible thing.  It really is "the last enemy" as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:26.

But suffering can also be instructive and purposeful in a Christian's spiritual maturity.

This morning, my pastor Brian Croft commemorated the anniversary of our friends' passing with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 1:1-11, where Paul famously proclaimed that God "comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort that we ourselves are comforted by God" (verse 4).  I seem to remember trying to do a Greek exegetical paper on that text, but most of those projects left me less sure of the text's meaning than I was before I even started the study (that's probably one of the reasons why I decided not to push my luck with biblical language studies in the post-graduate level).

Exegetical nuances aside, I think the meaning of this text is more easily accessible for Christian believers who have endured great suffering and loss but have consequently been strengthened in their faith because of that suffering.  They have been able to recognize Christ as truly sufficient for their weaknesses.  Those who have suffered greatly and lost much should be more willing and able to comfort other brothers and sisters who are going through their own struggles.

Truth be told, I've lived a very comfortable life.  I'm still living a very comfortable life.  Growing up, I didn't experience much loss.  Those losses have certainly started piling up in the last five years, however; such is the nature of life.  When you don't known the pain of loss, it's hard to really understand what most of the Bible is talking about.  So, instead of focusing your exegetical energies on comforting people with the Word of God, you can tend to distract yourself with discussions and debates over subjects that (while important) don't really capture the thrust of what the Biblical authors (and the Holy Spirit) were most interested in communicating to God's people.  I could indulge that point further, but now is not the time.

It's important that so many of Paul's letters begin and end with comforting words to the Christian churches.  These churches, regardless of their relative virtues and vices, were living in tough times.  Paul himself had seen suffering beyond what even most of them had experienced.  But even Paul knew that his own tribulations couldn't compare to the greatest sacrifice which our Lord Jesus Christ made for us in his Passion week.  Now that was the definition of a terrible seven days.  Our Savior suffered and died for us, and by His resurrection He secured our eternal reward.  That reward doesn't mean that we've been given a free pass in this life to avoid pain and live a perfectly comfortable life. Quite the contrary, in fact. Our suffering will come, whether by external forces bearing down upon us in hostility or through the natural course of life in a fallen world.

But we've got a promise that we serve a God who is also our Great High Priest.  He symphathizes with us completely in our infirmities and was tempted in every way, yet He was without sin (Hebrews 4:14).  Because of His suffering, we can approach the throne of God with confidence that He will bestow us grace to endure our own suffering and use our experiences to comfort others in their suffering.

Therefore, I'm thankful for this year in which God has taught me suffering, even if my experience is still meager compared to what most people in life deal with on a daily basis.  And I ought to be about the business of bringing comfort and grace to others, because I'm sure I'll be on the receiving end again in the future.

I'm Thankful for This Year, Part II

I am thankful for friends and family and for the time I've been able to spend building relationships with them over the past year.  When I learned of the death of the Boyetts, the first thing I thought about was how terrible it would be to suddenly lose my parents.  When I learned of the death of Stacy, the first thing I thought about was how terrible it would be to lose any of my dearest friends I have made throughout life.

After my friend Adam Embry called to inform me of Stacy's death, I jumped in my truck and personally went  to deliver the news to my dear friends, the Gould family.  After I returned home, I attempted to call up a number of old friends whom I hadn't spoken to in a long time.  As best as I could manage, I tried to tell my friends how much I deeply appreciated each one of them being a part of my life.  And I've been able to use this last year to take some opportunities in trying to make the most of those existing friendships and to work hard so that those bonds don't disappear due to neglect on my part.  I haven't been able to invest as much time as I'd like, and most of the time my contact with long-distance friends has to be limited to email, phone calls, or social messaging technologies.

Stacy's sudden death became a source of some guilt for me because for as much time as I spent with the Ellison family, I couldn't recall many instances where I had verbalized my appreciation of their friendship.  It's a cliche, but "sometimes the important things go unsaid."  For whatever reason, being fully honest about my feelings has been an emotionally difficult thing for me to do.  It's not so much that I'm hung up on some misplaced notion of masculinity, but it just doesn't feel like a very natural thing to my own personality.  Most of us don't live our lives constantly and repeatedly gushing about how much we appreciate our most beloved family and friends, but we shouldn't neglect that sort of thing altogether either.  When God takes folks away from us without warning, we'll regret the fact that we never took the opportunity to let those people know exactly what we thought about them.

I suppose that without that terrible week last year, it would have taken me longer to realize all that.  So I'm thankful that out of those tragedies came something good for me on a personal level.

One more post to come in this series later tonight.

I'm Thankful for This Year

November is the month in which we are most cognizant of our need to be thankful.  This week marked the one-year anniversary of a series of tragic deaths experienced by my Louisville church family, as I have written about repeatedly over the past few months.  A year ago Wednesday I was helping decorate the church sanctuary for Christmas when we heard news that Jackson and Barbara Boyett died in a car crash in Texas, a year ago Friday I was in my room surfing the net after work when I was informed that Stacy Ellison died, and a year ago this coming Tuesday I had just gotten back from Stacy's funeral when I got the call that Lester Jones (a dear old man who served our church for decades) finally passed away after years of declining health.  That was a terrible seven days.  When grieving and suffering loss of friends and family, it can be difficult to convince oneself that thankfulness is an appropriate and realistic response.  Nevertheless, I am thankful to God for many things that have come about in my own life over the course of the past year.

First of all, I am thankful for employment that has allowed me to strengthen my financial situation but also permits me the freedom to make short trips back home to see my family.  Last December, the seminary's archives department had a job opening and my co-workers recommended I apply for the full-time, salaried position.  I was reluctant to do so for a number of reasons, but I eventually decided to apply, interview, and finally accept the job offer effective January 9, 2012.  It's been a great experience, even if it has contributed to delays in progress of my dissertation due to time commitments.  However, the job has also taught me a great deal regarding archival and library skills that have proven valuable in my study efficiency, so it all probably evens out. 

My biggest concern with taking a full-time job was that the responsibility would allow me less time to go back to Tennessee and spend time with family, especially my Granny, who had been bed-ridden for about 2 years and needed constant care.  I wanted to be available in case I was ever called upon to attend to my grandparents on a more frequent basis.  Granny died in late July, but I was able to spend a few more important days with her before that happened, and I got the week off from work to attend and preach her funeral. 

I don't know if I'll stay in library-related employment long-term, as I do have other vocational aspirations, but I certainly am thankful that I am working the job that I have right now.


More to come on this theme later today...

Expecting God to Do Something Great

This past Sunday marked the 9th anniversary of my pastor Brian Croft at Auburndale Baptist Church.  During last Wednesday night's business meeting, he shared a couple of simple reflections that he had learned during his time as pastor.  He recently posted them on his blog.

Both points he noted are good and very emotional subjects for folks like me who have known Brian over the years, but his second point resonated deeply with me:  "The Way God's Blessing Often Flows Out of Sorrow."  In every church, there will be painful losses.  Whenever members leave a church, there ought to be sadness to see them go, even when it is for good reasons like job or ministry opportunities. Some losses come about through controversy as members either leave the church in bitterness or receive the stern hand of church discipline.  Many of these losses, however, will come through the death of members... and some of them tragically so.

In all my years at Auburndale Baptist Church, I never knew such sadness as the stretch of days between November 30 and December 2 of 2011.  Our church lost three people dear to us in two unrelated automobile accidents hundreds of miles away.  In both instances, a vehicle from the opposite lane lost control and made a head-on collision with the specific vehicle containing the people precious to us.  After the first crash, I tried to rationalize it as a simple, occasional tragedy.  But after the second crash, the one which killed my dear friend, I could not accept the fact that it was a simple coincidence.  I felt as if I and my brothers and sisters and Auburndale had suffered a cruel blow ordained by God himself.  As I have confessed in a previous post, I had to deal with a little bit of my own anger toward God for not only allowing such tragedies to happen, but for seemingly being the direct cause of them.  I am thankful, however, that the grace of God in Christ proved sufficient for me and brought my heart to dependence upon him rather than resentment.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that God must have a great purpose in order to ordain such a terrible sequence of events.  The first thing I did after hearing of the loss of my friend was to take the time to call up various people throughout my life who have made a great impact on me (and who continue to be important to me) and simply let them know that I appreciate and care for them.

I have seen the seeds of long-term transformation in my own life since the events of last December.  I try not to ever take the important people in my life for granted or assume that they'll always be around for me.  When people I care about get sick or go through hard times, I do what I can to lift them up and encourage them in the Gospel.  Life is way too short as it is, and it can change from routine to tragedy in an instant.  I do not know what God specifically has in mind for my life, but I hope that I am able to honor the friendship I had with Stacy Ellison by working harder to strengthen the existing and future relationships in my own life.  And I hope God, in his kind and wise providence, will put the people in my life that I'll need to be more effective for Him and appreciate His goodness even more.

Therefore, in light of all losses that have occurred in my life since last December, I'm encouraged rather than discouraged.  I'm expecting God to do some great things.  And I hope I'll get to see them.