It was mid-summer 1937, a hot day in Bainbridge, Georgia. My mother had returned for the first time in 17 years to the community of her childhood. She had long been through a hard row to hoe period of life. Leaving home in 1920, she went 1,000 miles north to the growing industrial area of northern Ohio. She sent money home to her dying father, and lived on the residue of her wages. She met and married the man who became my father, only to lose him to five years in a sanatorium, and death from tuberculosis in 1929. She held tenaciously to her three children, losing them for a short period, and surviving on her own labors, until she met and married again to a good man who really wasn’t a father to me in the traditional concept of family. The Great Depression hit us hard, but we survived. I felt I had a rather normal childhood, but it progressed without adequate spiritual or fatherly guidance. There was enough for me to know the difference between good and evil, between becoming a good citizen and a poor one. The story is extensive if all were told for a possible future – for good or ill. My friends came from poor but surviving families.
On one of those days that summer of ‘37 we went into Bainbridge, about fifteen miles south of the family’s old cotton and peanut farm, to visit mother’s relatives. Our hostess was my mother’s aunt – for a few hours on her front porch. She was poor, long widowed, and busy with her hands making coverlets for her adult children – gifts the following Christmas. Her hands were busy as she visited with my mother. I listened in. For some unknown reason, I was interested, even as a teen, in the conversations of adults. The two women exchanged personal interests and concerns. Mother asked about living alone, as her aunt had done for some years. The reply is remembered as follows: Yes, I miss my family days, and the sense of worth they gave me. But, don’t feel sorry for me. I have my share of health, and I have my faith in the Lord. I never really feel alone, even when a bit lonely. The love of God is like that. I have never forgotten her slow motion on that old porch swing, her moving hands, and her gentle, sincere voice to my mother. She talked almost like a mother to a long absent daughter. What an evidence of grace she ultimately became to me. I knew that, someday, I wanted the kind of peace that she so simply verbalized, and seemed to prove in the most modest acceptable context of her life – as I perceived it then, and do now.
The disciples of Jesus were distraught at the announcement of Jesus that he was leaving them. The manner in which it was to come about was almost more than they could bear. Some of them did not handle the matter well. Judas even betrayed him. Peter denied him. Judas took his own life. The others worked through their grief. Jesus gave a promise, a promise that took them some time and experience to accept and possess. It was a promise made to the disciples for all time, as identified in the promised Holy Spirit. He would always be with believers. This comforter would help them through mortal life until he (Christ) would come again and complete his kingdom. They were to rest in that, and ultimately did so.
In January, 1940, I found the simple faith, that old auntie affirmed and modeled – now more than 80 years ago. So it is that every Christian, no matter the circumstances, should remember and find affirmation, fellowship, peace, expectation, prayer, and sustaining grace through to the end of mortality. Just a few years ago, during a travel stop, I lunched with two dear friends. One was in deep lament and funk over the death of his wife – quite unlike his former self. He had ministered well to a mega-church for many years, a church he founded decades earlier, but was now retired and lonely. We had ministered together, our wives were dear friends, and we shared mutual concerns for our children. I had served as M.C. at the magnificent hotel where the church people feted him and his wife on retirement. On this day, a few years after that beautiful day of honor, and the settling of days, I said: My dear friend, you need to practice what you told so many people is God’s way with us in all our years. Find those words for yourself. I have forgotten some words I used, but essentially added: Sense the beauty of the place of your beloved, and that will be yours as well. Be full of the blessing of this far country where God comes in empathy, peace and courage. Two years later my friend joined his beloved wife. We tend to interpret our lives in the differences we offer to closeness and distance. We need closeness to our own immortality. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020