I wish my kids could meet my Pepa, but he passed away before
they were born. Hunter came close to
meeting him, though. Within touching distance, actually. The week before Pepa passed, I went to see
him, ultrasound video in tow. I was only
two months away from delivering his first great-grandchild, and I wanted him to
get to share in the excitement. Weary
from his struggle with cancer, Pepa wasn’t moving around or speaking much at
that point, but spent his days quietly on a long, blue sofa, so I settled in on
the floor as close to him as I possibly could, my back to the sofa, so that we
could watch the ultrasound video together.
I tried, at first, to interpret for Pepa what we were seeing
on the video, but realized pretty quickly that I didn’t really know myself. Laughing
at my own ineptitude, I turned to share a smile with Pepa and locked eyes with
his. Large in his sweet, tired face, his
dark eyes were tearful and sad. My own
eyes brimmed in response. Smiling, he
reached out and smoothed my hair back from my face. That was when I first realized
that Pepa might not be with us when my baby boy was born. Gently, I took his hand and placed it on my belly
right where Hunter had been kicking just moments before and prayed silently that
it would happen again. It did. For a
full minute or so, Hunter twisted and kicked and stretched as if trying to meet
his great-grandfather, but it wasn’t to be, not in this life anyway.
Pepa is with Jesus now, and I’ve done my best to bring him to
life in the minds of both of my children, telling them stories about the gentle
and generous man of steel and velvet that I knew as a child, one of the
strongest branches in their family tree.
Mema and my mother have certainly helped. Recently, my mother showed us a display that she’s
created in a large, black hutch in my parents’ living room. A miniature museum of sorts, it is full of
black-and-white images of my grandparents and great-grandparents. In the center, a small cedar box holds family
mementoes and keepsakes.
Though I knew the faces in the photos, at least by name, I
was stumped at first by some of the trinkets in the chest, a piece of lace and
some oddly shaped pieces of tin. Anxious
to share some family history, my mother explained that the lace was from Mema’s
wedding dress and that the pieces of tin were trench art valentines that Pepa
had etched for Mema while stationed in New Guinea during World War II. I was touched by what I saw and read. The etchings were lovingly and painstakingly
done, one depicting a lonesome soldier outside his tent under the stars. “Missing you,” the caption read, the note
beginning with “My Darling Wife.” After giving us time to examine the
valentines, my mother drew our attention to the photo of a very young Mema
standing by a vase of roses. With pride,
my mother explained that Pepa had arranged from New Guinea to have the roses sent
to Mema on their first wedding anniversary. Pepa was a true romantic, and I
smiled at the reminder.
As my mother talked, I grew wistful, imagining scenes that never
did and never will play out in real life, Hunter and Hope running from the car
into Pepa’s waiting arms at Christmas, Pepa telling my thirteen-year-old daughter
over and over again that she is “just beautiful,” and Pepa teaching my son how
to dream big dreams and chase them, all things that I was blessed to experience
myself. My eyes began to sting. At the end of our visit, my children left my parents’
house encouraged and inspired by what they had heard. Feeling good about life and family in general,
they tucked their newly acquired knowledge away and went about the rest of
their day as usual, but the ache in my heart remained. It’s one thing to hear about a person and
another entirely to know them. Though Hunter
and Hope probably feel as if they know Pepa pretty well by now, they still have
never met him.
These days, it seems that people are quoting scripture and
talking about prayer like never before, and that is wonderful. Scripture and prayer are things we desperately
need, but I can’t help wondering just how many people are walking around
feeling as if they know God pretty well when they’ve never actually met
Him. Christians and non-Christians alike
draw encouragement and inspiration from reading the Bible, but reading—even believing—the
Bible and knowing God personally are two completely different things. God has given His Word to the world so that
those who don’t know Him can find Him, but salvation and subsequent intimacy
with God are only available to those who put their faith in Jesus Christ to
forgive them of sin and rescue them from eternal separation from God.
Understand, God is not our cheerleader; He is the one and only
Hope for this lost and dying world. To
meet Him is to be moved beyond encouragement and inspiration. To know Him is to be forever changed.
Growing up, I was a Mema’s girl, and why not? She always made me feel as if I were the most
important person in the world, buying all of my favorite foods when I
came to visit, drawing bubble baths for me, and waiting patiently for me to get
my quarter’s worth out of the mechanical horse at the grocery store. What’s more, she is the only person ever to
announce my entrance into a room with, “And now, the one, the only, Angela Dee!” Understandably, I got homesick for my Mema quite
often when I was little. I still do.
One Sunday morning when I was about seven years old, my
Mema, who lived almost two hours away at that time, appeared unexpectedly in
the hallway outside of my Sunday school class.
My heart did a happy little flip.
Without hesitation, I dropped my Sunday school artwork and Precious
Moments Bible and ran toward her, arms outstretched.
“MEMA!” I cried.
She hesitated for just a moment before squatting down to my
level, though, and even as I embraced her, I knew something wasn’t right. Though she had blonde hair, bright blue eyes,
and wore plenty of gold jewelry, this Mema hadn’t smiled or called my name. This Mema was too small in my arms, too bony. I froze.
This Mema wasn’t hugging me back.
Heart pounding, I pulled back just enough to look into deep, violet eyes
that were not quite my Mema’s.
It’s fascinating to scroll through Facebook and Twitter
feeds these days. People are very open about
their personal lives, and I am encouraged to see how many people are really trying
to make a difference in the world, praying for the sick, giving of their time
and money, and reading and quoting their Bibles openly. These are all good things in and of themselves,
but I really wish that I could scroll through hearts as well.
I would love to know for sure that these people I know and care
about are doing good things because they belong to Jesus and are living to please
Him. I hope with all of my heart that He
is the source of their apparent passion because, eternally speaking, good works
and good intentions count for nothing outside of a personal relationship with Jesus
Christ. What a nightmare it would be to run
into eternity with confidence only to find that what you had embraced here on earth,
though worthwhile and good, was not quite Jesus after all and, therefore, not
quite salvation.
When my daughter Hope was in the second grade, she started
bringing me wildflowers from the school playground. Every afternoon, smiling proudly, she would
run to the car, a tiny, purple wildflower pinched delicately between her thumb
and forefinger.
“For you, Mommy!” she always announced as she climbed into
the backseat. As soon as we got home, we
always put the tiny blossoms in a cup of water.
However, as wildflowers tend to do, thy almost always died by morning,
putting a damper on Hope’s spirits.
After a few weeks of this routine, I told Hope that she
didn’t have to pick the flowers to give them to me. I told her that she could find one she liked at
recess and then point it out to me when I picked her up. I promised to collect them into a bouquet in
my heart that wouldn’t ever die. Reluctantly,
she agreed.
That summer was our first to spend on grounds at Falls Creek
youth camp in the Arbuckle Mountains of Oklahoma. I’ll never forget the look on Hope’s face as
we wound our way around the mountain on the high road into camp. “Look, Mommy!” she said, pointing to the
wildflowers that covered the otherwise rocky landscape. I smiled.
The cacti were in bloom, the dandelions were plentiful, and tall, dry stalks
shot out from between the rocks, topped by purple flowers that looked that
suspended firework explosions.
“Those are pretty, Mommy,” Hope almost squealed. "I’ll get you some of those.”
I reminded her that she didn’t have to pick them to give
them to me. When she discovered that the
cactus blooms came with sharp needles and that the stems of the purple flowers
oozed sticky, milky goo, she was glad not to pick them and embraced the idea of
a heart bouquet with new enthusiasm.
That was a fun summer.
Looking for flowers to add to my heart bouquet became a sort of quest
for the two of us. Every time we found a
new kind of flower, Hope would point triumphantly. “That one’s yours,” she would announce with a
smile. By the end of the summer, my
heart bouquet was huge, full of cactus blooms, dandelions, crepe myrtle
blossoms, baby’s breath, and other flowers that we didn’t know the names
for.
The funny thing about my heart bouquet is this. After all of these years, I can still see it
clearly in my mind. What’s more, I can
also see the sweet, soft face of my beautiful thirteen-year-old daughter as the
exuberant, carefree, tender-hearted second grader she once was. I can hear the excitement in her voice as she
points out wildflowers and feel the heat of her summer-flush cheeks against
mine as I hug my thanks before we continue our walk. The memory makes my heart squeeze and my eyes
sting. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to live
that summer—or just one day in it—with my little girl again.
I was thinking about my heart bouquet as Todd and I drove
around Falls Creek today. Everywhere we
looked, kids were getting along, having fun, and proclaiming their faith
easily. “Jesus loves you!” we were told
at least a dozen times as we passed group after group of happy, T-shirt wearing
teenagers. We visited the Icee Hut,
Boulder Springs, and other land marks before passing the cabin that I used to
stay in as a teenager. In that moment, it
wasn’t hard to imagine myself thirteen again, discovering for the first time
that God had an amazing plan for my life that required my full surrender;
sixteen, struggling to make “level paths” for my feet; or eighteen, resolved to
let God lead my heart where He would, whatever the cost.
It’s no wonder that so many adults have such precious
memories of church camp, some so vivid that they squeeze their hearts and cause
their eyes to sting. Just as kids still
do, those adults once went to church camp open to the prospect of meeting with
God, eager to experience something brand new, and willing to receive Truth with
the power to change their lives forever.
Without pretense or thought to consequence, they gave themselves over to
His grace and mercy and experienced in that moment true intimacy with the
Creator of the Universe. That doesn’t
happen every day, you know. But it
should.
I can’t help wondering what would happen if we approached
every day the way we used to approach a week at church camp when we were kids,
open, eager, and willing to experience God without pretense or thought to
consequence. What if we made a habit of
looking for His activity in our lives and then lived our lives in worshipful
response? Personally, I think that we would
find ourselves with a heart bouquet of significant moments with God so big,
beautiful, and fragrant that we would never again be tempted to let it
die.
