Friday Thoughts on Faith

Faith, Hope, Love, and BBQ Sauce – Recipe for a Legacy

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Family reunions are always a mixture of ingredients…usually great food, some tender reunions, and much awkward silence with people you barely know. Every time I leave one, though, I’m struck by the power of legacy. On a late summer Sunday, we gathered with my wife’s father’s family and I thought about how a legacy is like a recipe.

There’s always great BBQ when my wife’s family gets together. In fact, the BBQ Sauce recipe is a long standing and closely guarded family secret. I knew I had made it when I was allowed to even lay eyes on that recipe for the first time.

It’s a secret primarily because it’s the backbone of Slim’s Deep South BBQ in Arcadia, Florida. Slim, or Ernest, was one of eight children raised in Arcadia. He was an uncle to my father-in-law. As the descendants of those original eight kids gathered in the town of the family’s origin on that late Summer Sunday afternoon, I was reminded of the incredible strength of faith that is my wife’s heritage. It’s a lot like a recipe.  

My teenaged kids didn’t want to go. I’m sure you can picture the conversation. “I don’t know these people.” “I don’t want to have to hear, look how big you’ve gotten all day!” Stuff like that.

But they went (as if there was ever an option).

Even though they definitely heard “I cant believe how big you are!” many, many times. They also heard some other things, too. They heard stories about a woman who was widowed and raised eight children. Stories about a woman who helped to raise her grandchildren. Stories about a a family where faith and loyalty and love were expected, modeled, and given freely. About a family who knew the pain of loss and how to overcome. About the importance of good food and family dinners. And respecting the bathroom schedule in a one bathroom house!

No family is perfect and there is dark as well as light in the stories that were told in the back room of Slim’s that afternoon. I’m sure there is more that I don’t know about. That’s okay, that’s part of the recipe too. Dark only makes the light shine that much brighter.

This is the legacy of my children’s great-great grandmother. And her son, their great-grandfather (whom they called Old Granddad) and their grandfather (whom they barely knew). But most importantly, it is the legacy that shaped their mother and therefore, is shaping them.

Theirs is a legacy of faith, hope, and love. It is a legacy of hard work. It is a legacy of great joy too. There was lots of laughter in that restaurant. There is always a lot of laughter in that family. Theirs is a legacy of strength. I have realized in a way I never have before, that strength, and particularly strong women, are on both sides of my wife’s family tree.

The resulting combination of ingredients is something to behold. Not unlike the BBQ sauce – a little sweet, a little spicy, and strong enough to stand on it’s own.

I guess, what I’m really trying to say is that I hope my children will one day be as grateful as I am for the unique mix of strength and tenderness that comes together in this woman I get to call wife and that they call mama. How I pray that generations from now,  her grandchildren will know and honor her the way Grandmother C was honored on a September Sunday.

“A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children…” Proverbs 13:22a

Friday Thoughts on Faith: Displaying the Work of God

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I can’t stop thinking about this quote from The Sacred Romance by John Eldredge.
The battles God calls us to, the woundings and cripplings of soul and body we all receive, cannot simply be ascribed to our sin and foolishness, or even to the sin and foolishness of others. When Jesus and the disciples were on the road one day, they came upon a man who had been blind since birth. “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents?” they asked him. “neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” And with that, Jesus spat on the ground, made some mud to place on the man’s eyes, and healed him (John 9:1-7)
 
Many of us who are reading these words have not yet received God’s healing. The display of God’s works through our wounds, losses, and sufferings is yet to be revealed. And so, we groan and we wonder. (The Sacred Romance, pg 61)

“…so that the work of God might be displayed.” That phrase is powerful. The work of God is displayed all around me every day, isn’t it? When I turn to look out of my office window to watch a storm front move in from the Everglades. When I see the brilliant yellows, grays, oranges, blues, and pinks of a Florida sunrise over the ocean or sunset over the horizon. Celebrating the life of a friend who has crossed over and is finally free and home. Watching my son make a decision he knows is in his own best interest when he would rather do something totally different. Celebrating a friend who earns his 90 days sober chip and another who earns his 1 year. All of these display the work of God.

I think one of the reasons I can’t stop thinking about the quote is because of all the times I have decided that I must be doing something wrong because my life doesn’t look like I think it should. I haven’t achieved what I think I should have achieved. I don’t have the things I think I should have. It amazes me how deeply I can be committed to the reward/punishment view of life. Oftentimes, I don’t even realize it at first. Then I waste so much energy trying to fix things when the simple reality could be that God is just up to something separate and apart from my good behavior or bad behavior.

Think about that. What if God is up to something apart from my behavior? What if He is simply working out His will through my life? What if how it looks today and what I have to travel through to get to what it will look like in the future creates the opportunity to display his glory and accomplish something for someone else and doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with me, per se? Now, please hold your theological high horses at bay and let me qualify that statement to say of course, obedience. Of course, holiness. However, if my behavior, good or bad, is the determining factor of what I enjoy, then God is no longer God – I have become Him. Or a very poor reflection of Him. “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”

I think about my buddy Andy. Andy crossed over into eternity a few weeks ago after years of battling an insidious throat and mouth cancer. He hadn’t eaten solid food in nearly 8 years. He went through surgery upon surgery, chemo upon chemo, radiation upon radiation, and Andy never lost faith. I’m sure he despaired and I’m sure at times he had questions. But mostly, he just continued to live his life as best he was able and as best his body would let him. When I look at Andy’s life, it’s tempting to ask “what did he do wrong?”. Andy would tell you, plenty. Really, though, I think what Andy walked through and who he became in that process was all about displaying the work of God.

And I know of MANY whose lives have drawn closer to God because of it.

Gratefully, I have not experienced anything approaching the struggle of Andy’s life – but I have certainly had my share. What life hasn’t? Whether its the loss of a job, struggles with teenagers, serious health issues with spouse and close family, or unexpected struggles and set backs in the lives of people I love. I could look at those things collectively as a hard life. Or maybe just a normal life. Or I could stop myself and ask, how many of these things have happened “so that the work of God might be displayed”?

And my answer would be…all of them.