Surprising Light

JUST WHEN WE NEED IT “Let us have confidence, then, and approach God's throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it.” Hebrews 4:16 (Good News) Every morning Kenny was dog-collared and chained under the porch of the sharecropper shack in Florida. He was put there to keep him out of sight and sound of his family. He learned to be invisible. Something inside Kenny’s heart and soul would not be defeated even if his food was table scraps and no words of love were ever thrown in his direction. Only by his own stubbornness and the grace of God did he grow to be an adult. One day someone at a country store mentioned an ad in a magazine. It included an address to which men in Florida were to write if they wanted to hear from women in Georgia seeking husbands. Another someone offered to write a letter for Kenny to a woman living on a farm in the country. It took weeks of waiting. Then to his amazement his letter was answered with a train ticket and a photo of Caitlyn. He hitched a ride to the train station and thus continued a journey unlike most of us could even imagine. Her father drove the two-mule wagon to the train station to meet Kenny. But after seeing him in person, her father shoved her back on the wagon and headed for home. Having come this far, Kenny walked behind that wagon for the thirteen miles needed to arrive at Caitlyn’s house. He was not welcome and it was plain that he needed to go away. But her father finally relented. They became husband and wife. Kenny raised rabbits to sell. Caitlyn and her mother made quilts from any available scrap material and offered them around the community. I met them the first Saturday that I was the new pastor of the Methodist Church up the road from their house. Actually I did not meet them. I just answered the parsonage phone. It was Kenny. “Preacher,” he said, “The preacher always takes me to the ‘rubbing doctor’ ‘twict’ a month on Saturdays.” Sleep was still lurking in my eyes and in my heart. I said, “Huh?” “The rubbing doctor has my appointment at 9 o’clock and then we go to the grocery store.” By this time I figured that he meant he needed and expected a ride to the Chiropractor and then to do his grocery shopping. Stuff like this was never covered in any of my Seminary classes. I picked Kenny up at his house and we made our way to town in my car. It turned out that the twice a month trips were somewhere in my job description. Not the one the Staff-Parish Committee draws up so measurements can be taken on the effectiveness of my ministry. Nevertheless, it was a ministry to which I said “Yes”. Then one very cold, bitter winter morning that same phone rang with Kenny sobbing: “She is dead, Preacher.” I made my way down the road and found that Caitlyn had simply given up life sometime in the night. Kenny was broken. We planned a funeral to celebrate her life. That was one of the most painful services at which I ever officiated. I don’t know how much later that I heard pistol shots coming from the church cemetery about a quarter of a mile from the house. That is not a sound you want to hear. You would not worry about a shotgun or a rifle in hunting season. But a pistol is often very personal. It was Kenny. He had somehow managed to borrow a pistol and cartridges. He was standing over Caitlyn’s grave and firing into the air. I pulled into the church yard. Kenny was finished with the pistol. He said, “Preacher, you know how the Army shoots over the grave when they bury someone?” “Yes, I do.” “Well, I thought Caitlyn deserved the same.” He was right.