My customers are complaining about their woodworking orders. It’s not the usual stuff about quality, prices, or delivery. Ironically, the complaint comes from people I know well. Usually they come from my closest friends and family.
My niece challenged me about the underside of a floor-level shelf on her end table. A friend disagreed with the back of a Shalom sign he ordered- the part that faces the wall. I take pride in these protests have no intention of changing. If they want to work with me, they will have to learn to accept these things as they are.
My trademark feature is at the heart of their complaint. It is applied after the work is complete and is my favorite part of woodworking. I don’t mean the clearly engraved “Mc” logo. My trademarks are harder to find because I hide them.
My niece discovered an Irish blessing when she removed her shelf and flipped it over. Etched in a Celtic font were the words:
May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.
I copied it from a needlepoint that my Mom kept in the hallway of our home. She has departed, but the family still cherishes her memory. After much deliberation I chose those words especially for my niece. They are proudly featured on the bottom of a shelf no one can see.
She believed the blessing deserved a more prominent display.
I disagreed.
If you turn over one of my Shalom signs then you find a blessing offered by the apostle Jude in an open letter sent to Christ-followers.
May mercy, shalom, and love be multiplied to you.
Kim and I went back and forth for an entire evening trying to pick the precise sentiment. It is my spoken prayer as I let my peace rest on every home that hangs it above their doorpost.
My friend thought it should be a highlighted part of the sign.
I disagreed.
There are other examples. Many of my pieces hide a message from the world but intend it for the recipient. I choose the words after careful deliberation. They may be a scripture, familiar verse, or just something I wrote. Each is my prayer for that specific person.
I call them the Hidden Things.
The Hidden Things don’t belong to the world. I share them with God and a particular person or family. They are the treasure of my work – my private hopes. They aren’t clever or funny, rather my simple petition to a Father who adores us. I hide them to emphasize that the sentiment is real.
The bottom of Kim’s coffee table
Some things are special because they are secret. These aren’t fortune cookies that you can buy a bag at a time. After much deliberation, I select them and present them to God on your behalf. I believe that He honors these requests by reading them aloud and speaking them into reality.
God does the same thing with us. He speaks in soft voices that we have to lean in to hear. He hides truths inside parables for us to discover. He visits us in dreams. The thrill of uncovering a Hidden Thing is to learn the very heart of God.
Exposing myself to criticism about my abilities as a woodworking craftsman is difficult. However, that is easy compared to letting down my guard with a message that arose from my soul. When the reward for my efforts is an eye roll, mockery, or being ignored – it is painful. If they don’t care, then I feel small. But when it sparks a deeper connection, every risk is worthwhile.
One day, someone will unwrap a piece that I have spent weeks building and without paying attention to what it is, will immediately ask for help flipping it over to search for the Hidden Thing.
On that day, I will know that I’ve shared my heart.
Making Waves is my commitment to take big risks, to be vulnerable, and to contemplate new ways to love God and my neighbor. The Hidden Things are like a post written for only one person.
I invite you to share Hidden Things, whether they are carved into furniture, tucked into a lunchbag, or scribbled on a postcard. The authenticity of the emotion behind the gesture is all that matters.
Perhaps we can find each other and a connection to God in our search for Hidden Things.
As I’ve grown older, my life seasons have changed. As the seasons have changed, so have the things that occupy my time.
When I was a parent of young children, most of my time was spent watching over and teaching them. As they grew up and moved out of the house, they didn’t need me in the same way. If I had continued to treat them as toddlers it would not have been productive, or in Bible-speak it would not have been fruitful. That part of my life needed to be pruned, but it had been a happy time, and I knew I would miss it.
Similarly, I have served for years in a specific ministry only to be later called into a different direction. God’s calling into a change was clear. Holding onto a particular area that had previously received his blessing was no longer good. It took time to change course, ending one ministry well and then starting the next. The previous part of my life needed to be pruned, but I worried what would happen to the former ministry after I was gone.
It is difficult to make these changes but not difficult to explain my reluctance. Either I am happy with the status quo, or I don’t trust God to take care of the things I leave behind. Regardless of which it is, I resisted change.
Sometimes the Bible’s references to pruning confused my feelings further. John chapter 15 evokes images of casting pruned branches into an eternal fire, while Mark 11 tells about Jesus cursing an entire tree to wither and die because its branches weren’t fruitful. These responses seemed severe for my challenges in changing my parenting style or handing off a ministry.
Recently, I learned about a different example of pruning – more of a symbol of a proactive and constant effort to stay aligned with God’s will for my life – voluntarily letting go of one thing to embrace something better.
The olive tree provides a beautiful illustration of this type of pruning. Olive trees are one of the longest living trees in the world. Some have been alive since Christ walked the earth. They live and bear fruit for centuries or even millenia. However the individual branches are not productive for that long. Eventually, each olive branch stops producing fruit and that branch needs to be removed so that the tree can thrive.
However when the branch is pruned, it isn’t abandoned or cast into a fire. God’s blessing on that branch continues, even after it is removed from the tree.
Most people don’t know that olivewood rarely comes from cutting down a tree. The trees are far too valuable for that purpose. Olivewood is harvested during the pruning season from cut branches that no longer produce fruit. They are gathered and slowly but carefully converted into one of the most beautiful, expensive, and prized types of wood in the world.
Photo by Davies Designs Studio on Unsplash
Olivewood has beautifully figured grain and is incredibly dense and hard. The finest wooden kitchen utensils are produced from olivewood. A few exquisite pieces of furniture justify the expense. Some of the finest carvings in the world started from a pruned branch.
In 1st Kings chapter 6, we learn that when King Solomon built the temple, he placed inside the holy of holies a pair of winged cherubim who stood vigil over the ark of the covenant. He chose to carve them from – you guessed it – olivewood.
Removing a non-fruitbearing branch isn’t punishment for a tree, or an admission of disappointment in its performance. Instead, it is part of a natural cycle that allows the tree to thrive while the branch releases a special beauty that it otherwise could not. If this were not true, would God have allowed a fruitless branch to become a guardian angel in his home?
Pruned branches will never be a substitute for a fruitful life. However if they are carefully removed at the right time and turned back over to God, then he can do wonderful things with them. They can still be a blessing. They become visible evidence of God’s invisible qualities and continue to point us back to Him.
Thriving trees produce pruned branches. It is all part of a life of Shalom spent releasing and expanding as we rest in the Father’s arms.
If you are interested in seeing products that I make from olivewood, please click on the link below to look at the Shalom Door Post Signs. They are made from olivewood grown in the Holy Land that ships to me directly from Bethlehem, Israel. The word Shalom is laser engraved in Hebrew characters on one side as a declaration of peace over your home, while the other side includes a scriptural blessing.
Maybe it will also remind you that God can do something magnificent when you release a portion of your life to him.
When I was a kid, you could buy 40-sheet spiral notebooks on sale for a ridiculous price, like 10 for $1. We always had a stack lying around the house, mostly intended for school use.
I was never a fan. The spiral rings got bent, preventing the pages from turning smoothly. If you tore out a page, there was a strand of perforated leftovers trapped inside the ring. For each page, you had to extract it and walk to the trash can to throw it away. If you waited for several sheets before removing each strand, they got all smashed up in there and ripped into tiny pieces when you tried to carefully remove them.
Even the detached page had all these weird jagged fingers where it had been torn. They seemed to mock my preference for the smooth crisp edges of loose-leaf notebook paper.
They were not for me – except during the summertime.
Free of the shackles of school, my days were my own to roam about. One of my pastimes was to crank the handle of our Boston pencil sharpener as it cut a perfect point on my wooden pencil before opening the cover of one of our spiral notebooks.
It was time to draw, and all I needed was a subject.
Neither my brother, Preston, nor the family dog, Tippy, were good models. They had too many complicated parts and never sat still. Sometimes I tried to draw the furniture in one of our rooms, but that required lots of straight lines and I was never very good at those. My lines were wiggly and curved at the end.
Thus began the process of wandering aimlessly about the house in search of inspiration. I would look at something, then look down at my tablet and imagine what it would look like on the empty page. Nah. Unsatisfied, I carried my hunt to the next possibility. There never seemed to be anything fun to draw.
After minutes of excruciating search, I would lose interest in drawing and move onto something different. Throughout all of my summer vacations I am not sure I ever touched the pencil to the paper more than a handful of times.
I’m not much of a artist.
During the past eighteen months, I’ve written maybe half a dozen blogs. That is infrequent compared to the almost weekly basis before that.
Recently, I’ve had an urge to get back in there and work at it. On several different days I picked up my laptop and sat in my most comfortable chair, ready to write something.
It was time to write and the only thing left was finding a subject. My mind would drift through the things going on in my life. Most of my ideas didn’t seem to be quite right. Occasionally I would just pick something and dive in, but after a few paragraphs I would pause to read my progress. It had as much life as a glass of Coke that had been left on the counter overnight. I deleted everything and went back to my home screen.
Eventually, my laptop began to stare blankly back at me in exactly the same way my spiral notebook had done decades ago. Just like before, I put it down and went to find something more fun to do.
Usually that “something more fun” was in the garage.
I’ve been approaching my writing much the same as I did drawing. If I couldn’t find a just-add-water subject, then I haven’t taken the time in quiet contemplation to figure out why. After all, I’ve been busy.
In the time since my writing paused, I have built countless items for people. I have zero regrets. No matter how difficult any project has been, it remains my firm belief that God was using it as part of a greater plan.
Convinced that it has been my calling, I have thrown myself completely into it. No amount of effort, organization, money, imagination, or pain could keep me away.
After losing the last joint of my index finger in a table saw accident, I literally began working one-handed as soon as I could stop taking prescription pain meds (less than a week). At night, I have dreamt about intricacies of whatever I was working on. I have set up web sites, bank accounts, a fully-stocked woodshop, an in-house store, and so many other things in a brief time that most people would find it difficult to believe.
I have spent almost two years living out Colossians 3:23, and I have loved it.
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord“
But if I was working with all my heart, how come my heart keeps getting called back to writing? Why do I keep returning to my laptop and staring at an empty screen? Can’t I be fulfilled by a divine calling? How come I have to have more?
I think the answer lies in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 5. Jesus’ ministry was just taking off. He had recruited his own team, found his voice as a teacher, and begun a healing ministry that had the entire countryside abuzz. Crowds of people were coming to him and then following him from place to place. He was watching the Kingdom of God come to a chosen people.
He must have been excited beyond words. At night, maybe he dreamt about his next message or about the next person he would heal. I bet he jumped out of his bed each morning ready to continue his ministry.
However, the verse 16 seems like a contradiction to his energy and momentum. After 30 years, things were finally starting to pop. So what did he do?
But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
Luke almost sounds surprised by the response. The word “but” implies that Luke thought withdrawing to lonely places was a contradiction to his ministry, like it was slowing him down.
My guess is that Luke expected to write something more like. “Jesus often got up thirty minutes early to read scriptures and pray.”
Do you know how long Jesus must have been absent for Luke to say that he withdrew to a lonely place? In the next chapter he tells us about one example when Jesus was gone all night.
I believe that I know what Jesus prayed about all night. After all, Hebrews 4:15 says that he was “tempted in every way, just as we are.” If he was facing the same difficulties as we do, then we can probably guess what was on his mind. What would trouble you as your ministry took off?
He was challenging himself, ensuring that humility and love triumphed over pride and preference. He discussed with the Father where he should go and what he should talk to the crowds about. He studied his own heart to see if any cracks were developing between him and God. And he listened.
Jesus probably wrote some of his most famous parables in those lonely places. He poured over and over the words, making sure they captured eternal truth without including unnecessary additions. You can imagine him trying to work out the details of the different kinds of seed (Matthew 13). If he struggled with the same things as us, then he must have struggled to get each parable perfect.
At some point, he had to practice saying the parable out loud to ensure he wouldn’t leave parts out, but also validating that the truth rang out.
Those are the same things I do when writing my blogs. They are my prayer of sorts that I share with the world.
Even though I spend time in scripture and prayer each day, my heart has missed the hours at a time I spend writing. My short prayers every day occasionally fall short of their potential. They aren’t wrong, but they are incomplete. God had a lot more for us to work through than could be done before the end of my cup of coffee.
Caught up in my ministry of actvity, I had begun to slot God into a few, prime timeslots instead of occasionally offering him my whole day. The tugging at my heart to start writing has been his way of saying that we need more time together.
It is hard to surrender my time to God, since he won’t tell me how much he wants first. When I do, it is frustrating to spend an hour pouring out what is on my mind only to hear him whisper that it needs more work.
Each time I write something down, it is like turning to God to say “Did I get it right this time?” and he frequently says “Nope. Not yet. Keep trying.”
In the case of this blog, it took three times before he smiled and I could feel his peace.
Lately, I haven’t been withdrawing to lonely places very often. My head said that I was doing the Lord’s work. My heart has been suggesting something different. It is time to start listening to my heart again and spend more time Making Waves.
It is hard to find balance in it all. It is easy to run to one side and spend all my time “working with all my heart”. It is also easy to run all the way to the other side and move into a lonely place with him where I can’t fulfill my divine purpose.
Perhaps the answer will come one day at a time rather than following a formula.
The urge will unexpectedly stir to sit down in a quiet place and process what He is trying to put on my heart. I need to drop everything when that happens. At other times, someone will reach out and ask for help building something special. Then it is time to go to work.
This blog has given me joy as I enjoyed the hours away from the fray, listening and contemplating.
It seemed that a global conspiracy had been put into place, keeping Kim and I from taking our first international vacation. We had canceled our plans for three years in a row – first for a pandemic, then a military invasion, followed by slow tourism reopenings. We had originally planned a trip to Ireland, but the events of the past three years convinced us to head slightly further north to Scotland.
Our interest in exploring our roots was increased after assembling the story of my grandfather, James McAfee. Understanding more about his life brought clarity to events that shaped my father and me. I became aware of seemingly small things from our past that guided our worldview. Armed with that knowledge, we journeyed into our family’s distant past to see who else we could meet.
The McAfees are part of an ancient clan, tracing its roots back to Alpin, the first king of Scotland in the 9th century A.D. We were a small clan never exceeding 400 people, but present through events that shaped Scotland across the centuries.
The MacFies (the official spelling) battled for freedom with William Wallace in 1297 A.D. at the Battle of Stirling, again with Robert the Bruce when he defeated the English in 1324 A.D. at the Battle of Bannockburn, and in 1745 A.D. when the Scots tragically lost the bloody Battle of Culloden, signalling an end to much of clan life.
For years I have heard the stories of my proud forefathers defending themselves, risking everything to defend their way of life. However I was not prepared for the impact it would have on me walking the lonely roads of the small, rural island where our story began.
Colonsay is a stunningly beautiful island off the western coast of Scotland. I stood in amazement on the shores of Kiloran Bay, with the sounds of crashing waves drowning out all thoughts except for the magnificence of our Creator’s hand.
The 20-acre gardens at Colonsay House feature soft paths through ancient trees and brilliant flowers that seem to transend time itself.
You can clearly imagine watching people as they erected the Standing Stones thousands of years ago. Our views of hills and valleys are the same as the first eyes saw some 8,000 years ago.
James and I searched for hours for A’ Clach Thogalaich, the lifting stone. It weights 280 lbs and has offered generations of young men the chance to prove they are coming of age by lifting it off the ground. Lacking any good place to grip and awkwardly off-balance, it is deceptively difficult. No matter how I strained and pulled, it remained stubbornly stuck to the earth. Conversely, after a few adjustments and a brief struggle, James successfully lifted it and took his place in a long line of victorious warriors.
The MacFie population on the island peaked at 387 in 1881 A.D. but is currently just over one hundred people. Although that equates to 128 acres per person, neighbors there know each other. The joy people share together is demonstrated by its designation as the smallest island in the world with both a functioning brewery and distillery.
I was unprepared for the feeling of heartbreak after we walked a gravel path to MacFie Stone, the site of one of the darkest days in our family’s history. In that place Malcolm MacFie, the last clan chief, was murdered in 1623 A.D. – executed as he stood against the large standing stone. A mournful spirit hovers in that place, where for a moment humanity failed.
As much as we felt at home there, Kim and I agreed that few people would consider it an ideal vacation spot. Winter days are cold, dark and rainy. Summer days are cool and rainy. There are few modern conveniences and the ferry that provides transport has a schedule that is irregular and can be unpredictable.
Nonetheless my heart had an unexpected connection to that distant place. I am a MacFie, born out of the Highlands of Scotland. My life is part of a chain that extends across millenia.
Compared to the enduring beauty of Colonsay, my life seems very short.
In ways, it feels that my part of the story is very small. I am not only the 10th generation in the United States, but something like a 50th generation MacFie. Another 300 generations have passed since the first residents lived on “our” island. All but a handful of those have faded from memory, their names erased by the sands of time. One after another they rose up and took their place guiding the world before passing the torch on. Am I more than another life soon forgotten?
Is our time on this earth as fleeting and insignificant as Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes? He bemoaned the pointlessness of it all, the repetition of the earth despite our efforts. Even with all his wealth and wisdom, his temple is gone, his kingdom broken, his enormous wealth dispersed. Was it all “chasing the wind?”
If he struggled to find meaning in it all, how can we?
This week, I was introduced to Malcolm MacFie. He has been dead for 400 years, but his memory lives on and his story offers encouragement.
Most of us studied English Imperialism in high school. Since the U.S. threw off the shackles in the 1700s, it offers us little more than a footnote in history. However, Scotland fought for their recognition as an independent country for centuries (and had a popular vote concerning withdrawal from the United Kingdom as recently as 2014).
Malcolm became a clan chief during the reign of King James 1. In order to increase his control over the country, King James dissolved the Lordship of the Isles, the body that governed the islands around Colonsay. The MacDonald clan had previously controlled that governing body and formed a rebellion, led by James MacDonald who recruited Malcolm and several clan members. The rebellion was not successful and James MacDonald was imprisoned in Edinburgh castle.
James subsequently escaped and fled back to the islands, where Malcolm assisted him in some capacity. Malcolm was arrested for his role then tried and released when he agreed to offer his support in a specific campaign. However while he was gone, a group of mercenaries moved onto Colonsay.
These mercenaries feuded with Malcolm upon his return, who managed to avoid entangling the clan in a war by hiding whenever an attack came. While he must have been tempted to simply move away for a time, the law of that day required a clan chief to oversee the people or else they would forfeit their lands.
Eventually the mercenaries captured Malcolm and carried him to a hilltop on Colonsay where they tied him to a standing stone and executed him. The clan forfeited their lands and were required to disperse, many leaving the island they had known as home for 800 years. The MacFies became a “broken clan” until the 1980s when they were officially re-established.
Was Malcolm a failure? Is he even relevant today?
Malcolm may have died and his clan may have been disbanded, but the MacFies did not fade away, nor did the freedom he sought perish. Forced from Colonsay, we continued to pursue Malcolm’s values.
James McAfee emigrated to America in 1739 and helped to establish history’s largest democracy.
Robert Andrew MacFie was born in 1811 and became a successful businessman in Ediburgh before using his wealth to get elected to English Parliament to reform the very institution Malcolm had fought against.
Malcolm may have lost control as a clan chief, but his pursuit of freedom opened the door for exponential growth. MacFies, McAfees, McPhees, and others with variant spellings are now beyond counting.
Perhaps our value in this world doesn’t lie in our accomplishments or failures. The work of our hands may crumble and decay while our seeming failures yield enduring results. More importantly, the light that we shine continues to persevere.
I believe that in time I will pass from this earth and my name will be forgotten. However every day that I am alive I will seek justice, show mercy, and walk humbly. God can use my faith to build a better tomorrow. He can allow my unwavering hope to influence future generations.
It doesn’t matter to me that the lifting stone remained stubbornly still when I strained against it. My victory is that the next James McAfee lifted it. My legacy will be that others believe bigger things are possible through Christ.
Was Malcolm’s life a success? Was he responsible for the collapse of a clan, or the emergence of something bigger? The answer lies in your hope for the future.
My grandfather. James McAfee, was a pilot in World War II and died in the sky over Berlin, Germany in 1945. Although he was survived by two sons who each had their own kids, none of us knew him. His early death snatched away our chance to spend time with him in this world, and we can only look forward to him welcoming us into the next.
I compiled the letters he wrote home to his mom during his brief time in the military in the pair of books Your Loving Son, James – Vol 1 and 2. Those letters coupled with insight into the missions he flew introduced me to a young man full of life with a bright future ahead of him. However, I have already done my best to tell his story so won’t repeat the effort here.
Those letters exposed me to more than a grandfather I never knew. They are an open window into the past that allows a forgotten breeze to blow into our lives, carrying the sights and sounds of a time long since gone. That unexpected treat encouraged me to pull up a chair and watch out that window as other people walked by, unaware they were being watched.
His mother and father regularly strolled past my window, just like his youngest brothers. I watched his flight crew bond as they prepared themselves for battle. These people and more were featured and it was fun to meet them, since most of them died before we met.
My great surprise though was to meet a dark-haired teenager from a small farmtown in those fading pages. The words painted her in rich colors that surpassed the brief stories I had heard about her before. She was still very young but was facing hardships beyond her years.
In order to survive difficult ordeals, most people would develop a hard shell that can repel the severe conditions. This protective shell usually grows thicker as the years pass until cynicism slowly sets in. Gradually expecting less and less from others, isolation is preferable to the pain of disappointment. Alone or in a crowd, they keep a safe space from others.
However, it didn’t seem to work that way with her. In the midst of chaos, she embraced hope. Despite her circumstances she remained positive. As I read page after page of her story, it became apparent that she had a secret that was responsible for her strength. That secret influenced her decisions which in turn created the person we would come to know.
That secret explained how this teenager born into a troubled world would defy the odds to become a sweet, white-haired grandmother who would charm and influence generations.
By that time, we all called her Granny.
Back in 1943, Granny started the year as Ruby Keehn. She was seventeen years old and dating a charming, but older, boy. James McAfee had enlisted in the Army and left their small town in Indiana. He completed basic training and was probably just starting his next phase of training when she found out she was pregnant.
I can only imagine her struggling with whether she should tell her parents or try to hide her condition. She must have been scared of what others would think and worried about how she would support a child. However, she took a chance and told James, hoping for the best.
To her relief, he received the news well. They excitedly made plans to be married and she dreamed of the future they would build together. He would be a strong provider, she would be the doting wife, and this baby would be the first but definitely not the last. In her mind, she could already see them together. Unfortunately, a world at war was keeping them apart.
Love finds a way and she bought a ticket to Mississippi to be with James. She had never traveled that far before but her dreams awaited her on the other end and she began her trek. Upon her arrival, reality set in.
She could not stay on the military base and James was not allowed off-base during the days he was on-duty. She had to rent a room at a family’s house and wait longingly for the brief visits from James when he was off-duty. The room was expensive, but they were determined to find the $25 rent somehow. They began to make wedding plans.
When James told his mother about their pending nuptials, she did not respond as he had hoped. Mother had taken issue with someone in Ruby’s family and did not think she was an ideal choice. What a heartbreaking blow! She had no idea how to improve his mother’s opinion of her since it wasn’t based on anything she had ever done. It was a small consolation when James told her to trust him, that he would smooth things over. Would they really become the family she dreamed about?
Acceptance may have been on her mind, but money was a more urgent problem. Ruby went about looking for a job to pay rent and all of the other necessities of life. She excitedly applied at the first places, telling them how everybody back home knew that she was a hard worker and could work almost all day without taking a break.
One after another, rejections piled up. No matter how qualified she believed that she was, no one would give her a chance. All they saw was an out-of-town girl who had gotten into trouble with one of the countless G.I.s who streamed through town. He would be gone in a few weeks and she would also.
She didn’t quit trying though. She was determined to visit every business in town. She fought to believe in herself and to prove herself worthy even while others viewed her as something less.
Their wedding was nice but not exactly what she had envisioned. It was a rushed event since James wasn’t eligible for a leave. At least James’s mother traveled in for the ceremony and seemed to soften towards her. Ruby was encouraged as her new mother-in-law boarded the bus to return to Indiana.
Maybe they would patch things up after all. She decided that she would keep writing letters to her whether or not she ever responded. Even if it meant risking rejection, she would go first. She would lead with her heart exposed.
Soon enough, she was alone again in her small room. James had a $4 dentist bill and no way to pay it. It made her angry that things were so expensive and while he was risking everything for his country that he couldn’t get basic health care. Moreover, the government frequently didn’t pay him on time. He could go for weeks at a time without a paycheck. If something didn’t happen, they wouldn’t be able to make the next rent and she would have to retreat to her parents’ home that she had so proudly left behind.
On June 8, 1943 she grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and began to write a letter to James’s family. She couldn’t afford her own postage but James could always mail letters for free. She would tuck her pages in with his and hopefully the McAfees would share her letter with her mom and dad, even if they didn’t consider her to be family yet.
She laid across her bed and began writing.
She tried to be strong and scribbled some niceties about the weather and the nice family she lived with. The reality was that she wanted someone to hug her and make everything OK. Ocassionally she stared at the blank page and blotted away her tears, being careful not to let one hit the paper. She wanted to encourage them that their son was OK, not worry them with a tear-stained letter.
When you read carefully you can see the chinks in her armor. Even when focusing on asking about how the corn was coming in, her worries about money crept in. When she talked about her chance to make dinner for James this weekend, all she could afford was dried beans & onion with some potatoes. She wanted to do more for him.
It hurt me to read her words, knowing how hard she was trying but that her fortunes would not soon change. It was a small comfort that God withheld from her any clear view of her future. In less than two years she would be a nineteen-year-old widow with a second son on the way.
Amazingly though, this teenager continued to bend without breaking under the pressure. Somehow she persevered through the pain and never gave up hope. Even if she had known the sorrows that awaited her, I suspect she would have continued to stand strong. Buried in that decades-old letter was her secret that still speaks to us.
Ruby foused more on the people in her life than the circumstances that surrounded her. Even as dark clouds gathered, her face would light up when she talked about James’s youngest brother. She still had the same look decades later when she talked with me about her mom and dad, who lived into my teen years and beyond.
Despite her desire to prove herself to people, she understood that it was more important how she cared for them. Whether they held her in the highest regard or not, she loved them anyway. That simple trait would become a foundation that she built her life around.
On that day she shared her secret with us. Closing a letter that hinted at so many troubles, she told us how she coped with everything. She shared wisdom beyond her young age. When it all gets crazy and you seem to have lost control, focus on what you care most about. She closed her letter with the secret of her strength.
Her love for her kids and grandchildren was never dependent on how we responded to her. If I didn’t visit her when I was in town, she sent me cookies anyway. If I didn’t make room for her on my calendar, she faithfully mailed me a birthday card every year. She did the same for lots of people.
Across the years, her decision to focus on loving people shaped her. It softened her heart and defined her world view.
Sometimes life goes better than we deserve and sometimes it serves up more trouble that we could imagine. Those things come and go. When it all fades away, love remains.
My new goal is to live like she did. Through all the trials of life, my hope isn’t to conquer them and prove that I am more powerful. Instead, I hope to prove to others that they are important to me. Rather than rise above my circumstances, may the love that I share transform the people and world around me.
One day, I hope my legacy is the same as hers. May I raise up people who fearlessly love others.
Thank you, Granny for telling us the secret of your strength. Even more, thank you for making it our inheritance.
