Well…found myself in tears again at church this morning. This time I was set off by a trigger to a second-hand memory. Those are rare and often have a lot of inherent emotion attached to them. Back in 2017, I was traveling pulling the RV toward Atlanta, Georgia and to a campground reserved at Lake Lanier. It was a horrible traffic day. The interstate was stop and start with multiple accidents…and eventually longer and more frequent became the stops over the starts. Upon arriving at the campsite (right on the lake), I got everything set up and decided to go down to the picnic table by the lake. The moon was shining across the lake, and I could feel the strain of the travel day just drain away.
My newfound bliss was interrupted by a phone call from my brother Blake. He asked me how my day of travel was and I gave him the short version: “One of the worst travel days ever….Im exhausted and yet cannot sleep.” He spoke these words, into the phone to my ear, which are forever burned into my memory with that scene on a picnic table looking at the moon on Lake Lanier: “Im going to have to make it worse….Dad died today.”
Im tearing up write now just typing this recount of that day. Isnt it funny how these watershed moments of one’s life burn themselves into the very senses you experienced that day. I cannot see a beautiful moon shining across a lake without thinking of that day. I cannot smell the burning rubber and diesel fuel of an interstate highway, without reviewing the trip to that destined news delivery. The sound of frogs by a lake and the chirping of crickets…remind me of my anguished cry as Blake spoke those words.
The death of a precious and needed family member, is so profoundly impactful, that Jesus, upon seeing Lazarus’ family grieving because their brother had died, John 11: 33-35, groaned in his spirit as he met them at the gravesight, and it was recorded, “Jesus wept.” Jesus wept. He knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead…but he still allowed himself to profoundly and completely understand the intense pain in hearts when someone they love dies.
This morning in church that moment came flooding back….from of all things, simply singing the childrens song ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ The tears poured out and I couldnt sing. You see, my sister was there with dad in his last moments, as he passed from this moment of mortality into his immortality in God’s glorious presence. She described for me the most precious moment; as my mom Helen (as her beloved husband was passing on) knelt by his hospital bed and sang, ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ Well… anyone who knew our mother or had sat near her in church, knew full well, she had a pretty annoying singing voice. But she would not be stopped from singing the hymns in church. Nor did it matter so much in 2017, as the last thing dad heard as the angels gathered him into their arms. “Jesus loves me, this I know! For the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me…the Bible tells me so.”
In that moment….that very sacred of times of being in a moment… even for me; as I have that visual burned into the folds of my brain and can hear my moms voice singing that simple child’s song of faith, and the smell of the hospital…with the background monitors flat lining on their tonality….that second hand recounting of that day is prompted by the hearing of that song. I wept.
We are in a tumultuous time, with political divisions, family challenges, and people equating disagreement as a reason to hate. Strong feelings over things that will be forgotten some next day, as the newer, more devastating believe becomes the fashion of that new moment of time. I want to just simply believe that Jesus loves me….in this present world…as he loved me when I was a little boy watching my dad cry (the only time I witnessed that was that moment) as he stood in front of my Grandma Beulah Sunshine Hall’s open casket. Jesus loves me…and here is the crux of this truth to my faith: “because the Bible tells me so.” John 3:16 “For God SO LOVED the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER believes in Him….shall NOT PERISH, but have everlasting life.” Its so simple and clear and uncluttered….virtually impossible to misinterpret or translate wrong this text. My faith is born of my belief in His Word. So was my mom’s faith as she sang worship and praise in her tone deaf voice unto God. I think I can say that when Jesus saw my mom kneeling by my dad’s bed and holding his life scarred hand while singing (and clinging to) the truth she clearly understood…that Jesus’ wept with her. He knows. He’s been in all of our moments.
The very next hymn was another one that I couldn’t sing, as I was overwhelmed by Jesus’ presence by my side in that church: “It is well! It is well! It is well, it is well with my soul!!!!”
Present-In The Moment 
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