Faithful God

 August 5, 2021

“There aren’t any kids around here.” He said this matter-of-factly, without rancor or drama, but we couldn’t make ourselves believe it, so we took it as a challenge, going door-to-door, up and down the valleys that met in the little community we had begun to call home. We were too young and naive to think we couldn’t do it, and in a couple of weeks there were about thirty ragamuffin kids milling around the parsonage, eating hot dogs and s’mores while we welcomed them one by one. 

One of the doors we knocked on was Dennis’s. When his folks asked who it was, he blew us off with some smart-alecky remark, but he still showed up for the hotdogs, along with his friend Charlie. They were like Frick and Frack, Dennis, tall and built like a tank, Charlie, short and squat. Along with the others, they would sit at our kitchen table eating her chocolate chip cookies as fast as Linda could pull them out of the oven. We played softball, and to the chagrin of the church patriarch and matriarch, but to the delight of the teenagers, installed a pool table in the dining room. They came for Bible lessons, Sunday School, and general hanging around. We even started a youth choir, with Charlie and Dennis in the back row, sounding like the drones on a bagpipe, their notes going neither up nor down. 

The stories we could tell, of Linda getting met at the front door of one of our kids by her father and his shotgun, of the 25 mile hike we took that some walked barefoot, of lives transformed by the Gospel, and others who never seemed to make it stick, of Dennis who after a stint in the Navy, got pretty messed up until the night of his accident when after rolling his Plymouth Belvedere, woke up in a puddle of gasoline with a shattered hip, thinking he was going to die and praying that he wouldn’t. 

We stayed in touch all these years since he was a teenager. Today, he is a leader in his local church, witnesses to anyone who will listen, and even leads worship. I’m guessing he’s learned when notes go up or down in the fifty intervening years. He’s 67 today (I think), and in the hospital again, recovering from the surgery he had two weeks ago when he again almost died. God had plans for him those years ago, and still has plans for him today. Linda and I had the privilege of visiting him in the hospital today, of holding his hand and praying for him, blessing him in the Name of Jesus Christ. 

Being a pastor is funny business. Your failures stare you in the face, and are evident to even a casual passerby. Successes are often harder to gauge, and can take years to germinate, flower, and bear fruit. It was that way with Dennis, but we are humbled and grateful to have played a small part in it all, and to be able to pray with him once more. God is good, and he is faithful, and I am thankful tonight.