January/February 2002
"...Renewed Day by Day"
"outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day" - 2 Corinthians 4:16 |
by Wayne Warner
On Tuesday, September 11, a mere twenty minutes after an American Airlines 767 slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, New York Fireman Tim McGee, along with ten other in his brigade, ran into the building to begin rescue efforts.
Later, when the building collapsed, Tim McGee was the only fireman in his group to make it out alive. After having lost friends he had worked beside for over ten years, he turned to a rescue worker, scribbled a number on his hand and said, "Call my wife, Maria. Tell her I love her." Then he ran back into the dust. He hasn't been heard of since.
Life's experiences often take us on a roller coaster ride that tries the strongest of people. Without the abiding presence of Christ who promises his disciples personal peace, life sometimes becomes an impossible series of hills and valleys.
On another autumn afternoon we gathered to lay Roberta to rest under the trees on a large grassy knoll, surrounded by gently sloping hills. Others had earlier buried her mother just a few feet away, the mother she had faithfully nursed for several years as a loving daughter.
Having finished the service, I had done all I could for this saintly senior whom I loved. There would be no more weekly pilgrimages shopping for her grocery needs. No more clippings and poems she considered of special interest to me. No more laughing together over funny little things, like the Sunday morning at church when I caught her watering an artificial plant. She had assumed it was alive and could not understand why it didn't grow faster.
Old enough to be my mother, she was black and I was white. I loved her for being the spiritually gifted lady she was. When I later shared my loss with the congregation, they confessed their own feelings of being diminished. Everyone who knew her felt a loss because she left a vacancy wherever she went.
Still feeling my loss on Saturday, I received a call from another senior. Letha's husband of half a century died during the night. Would I conduct his service? My life's roller coaster ride pushed me on, expecting me to make necessary adjustments to the ups and downs.
| Without the abiding presence of Christ who promises his disciples personal peace, life sometimes becomes an impossible series of hills and valleys. |
Following a busy weekend, I got into my car and drove six hundred miles by myself, arriving in Minnesota in mid-afternoon. Once there, I focused on my reason for leaving my wife at home working while I made the trip; to meet Kody. Our first grandson had arrived just two weeks before, while my wife was present.
I surprised myself by adjusting quickly to the size of his tiny body. I loved the feel of comparing his tiny hands and feet with my oversized fingers. I savored the tender feelings he aroused in me as he pressed his way against my neck and under my chin. At bedtime, I finally sent dad and mom to bed, fully confident I could handle any emergency. Grandma had her turn earlier, and now I joyfully tended my grandson; it was my turn!
When he became a little restless, as babies will do, I accepted it as a rare privilege, knowing I wouldn't always have such opportunities. I had already waited fifteen years to become a grandpa, and I wanted to pack sixty seconds in every minute. I absorbed his presence, draping his little form across my shoulder for the next three hours. We sat and rocked, stood and walked, while I caressed him lovingly, petting him, bouncing him ever so gently and occasionally nuzzling him.
Since I knew his parents had played music for him long before he was born, I talked to him and softly sang, "Jesus loves me, this I know." I wanted Kody to know the sound of my voice and the warmth of my body. I wanted him to know me, identify with me and feel comfortable with me although I live a hard day's journey away in another state. And I wanted him to eventually discover the Jesus whom I have served for half a century.
We acquainted ourselves thoroughly, and the three days went by too quickly. Finally, on Thursday morning, I quietly stepped into his room, bent down, kissed him and walked quickly to my car. Taking a couple of quick photos of the house, I started the long trip home to a waiting congregation.
I left renewed and invigorated rather than diminished. I left behind me the living embodiment of my future, the newest male heir of three men, each of whom was the last male heir of his generation. Thus, I prayed for God to guide Kody's steps for Kingdom purposes, anxious to return to Grandma and my church family.
As Kody increases, I must decrease, but that is life. We are all weighed in the balance -- diminished and renewed, but life goes on. Saint Paul probably understood this better than I do. He understood well what it means to be diminished, but he also understood what it is to experience renewal.
God gave Paul a ministry to the Gentiles that he later described as a treasure in a clay jar (2 Corinthians 4:7). He admitted being diminished on every hand, hard pressed, persecuted and perplexed (vs. 8-10). In spite of being physically alive, he confessed to being given over to death, for Jesus' sake (v. 11). "So then," Paul boasted, "death is at work in us, but life is at work in you" (v. 12). "Therefore," he concluded, "we do not lose heart" (v. 16).
Paul noted that "outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day" (v. 16). The pendulum of life experiences swung both ways for Paul, but he knew the One whose presence brings renewal and concluded, "I am being renewed day by day."
Whether we face a catastrophe like the destruction of the World Trade Center or just the ordinary issues of life and death, we can allow our lives to become conduits for sharing God's grace with those who will accept its renewing power.
Wayne Warner is a retired church pastor.