There are so many ‘pieces’, long investments I have had the privilege and honor to ‘do’ and ‘be’ that are distant, fading ‘memories’ in my life. You have them too, people and places you poured and maybe continue pouring yourself into through different circumstances. We can learn from the circumstances and the people we were with, helping us understand deeply, the value of life and living…together.
It is rare that there are ‘one off’ times with people that forge significant growth in our lives. Those ‘one off’ times do happen. I remember, as a boy, an alcoholic uncle who was very street smart and wise telling me while sitting on a beach together in Hawaii that he saw and believed I would become influential as I learned to talk less and take time to listen more to the wisdom and stories of others warning me not to let bad choices ruin my life like they had him. I had so few times with Uncle George, three at the most, but that one time, alone with him while the others in our family were snorkeling in the nearby reefs ‘sticks’ in my mind for some reason.
While eating dinner with our friends a few nights ago, talking of life and death (see post a few back) I was foisted back to another memory from long ago, a time when I ventured weekly to visit, sing and share life with those convalescing in a facility and some of the staff who welcomed my time with them. It too started with a challenge from the Activities Director there when I called to offer bringing our church choir to sing during the Christmas season (I was the interim choir director at age 18 having never done anything like that before but having a school band background). She said,
“You churches are all alike. You flood us with desire to perform during Christmas and forget about us the rest of the year.”
Ouch. I promised her that ‘we’ wouldn’t. And her quick response was,
“You all say that.”
Our church choir did go and I tried to get any to join me to continue going without success. In short order a real director was found and I resumed my place as member, relieved to return, by the way. But that Activities Director lit a spark in my heart that wouldn’t go away and I followed up on ‘my promise’. I started going once a week to sing with only another young lady from our youth group (who didn’t sing) joining me as I stuck to my promise.
While serving and caring there, I met a wonderful resident.
Velma was almost always laying in her bed whenever I entered her room. The very first time I visited her, as soon as I silently passed through the doorway, an overwhelming sense of warmth and joy would fill me. She turned her head my way and greeted me. Mind you, this, I soon learned was significant. While looking at me her warm smile and gentle, glazened glance was followed by,
“Who’s here?”
I responded, curiously so,
“I’m Bob.”
Her instant response being,
“Oh you’re the sweet man who sings in the hallway. Come closer, sit by me.”
As I drew near, it became clear that Velma was blind. Her gaze returned toward the ceiling as she returned to her restful position thrilled to have me as a visitor.
Velma became one of my favorites to visit, full of joy, overflowing with peace and quite simply amazing with her ‘senses’. To this day, when I think of her, being blind, I know she ‘saw’ more than any sighted person ever would see because, as she would put it, she loved the Lord God Almighty.
While there were many stories to prove my point of incredible ‘sight’, there is one that stands as significant as the one with Uncle George.
I would always try to ‘sneak in’ to Velma’s room without success…ever. Most times when I’d enter she’d ask,
“Is that you, Bob?”
This in itself always amazed me. But this time as I entered her room, she, with excitement said,
“You never told me you were Oriental.”
Stunned and bewildered I froze. What? How? As I pressed nearer to her bedside I asked how she knew.
“God gave me a vision last night. I saw you singing your song, playing your guitar in front of several thousand people. I didn’t know you were Oriental.”
What? No way! Just the thought of me singing in front of a few hundred was like a larger than anything I’d ever expect. The thought to be playing and singing in front of a few thousand? No way! But even more striking she specifically ‘saw’ that I was Japanese! That in itself would have been enough to confirm her amazing, supernatural ‘seeing’.
Velma passed, and there are other significant stories related to her and our visits I must write, but, once again, that is for another time. I was heartbroken at her passing as a young man, her light, her life so significant in mine for so many reasons.
It was a few years later that I had started attending Point Loma Nazarene College (now Point Loma University). The college was having a school wide spiritual gathering and I was asked to sing a song I had written from Matthew 6 as part of the gathering. I had shared the song with Dr. Welch, the spiritual adviser when I'd interviewed with him as an attending student (he did that with every student asking each student to 'bring something that reflected best who we are) and he asking me much later to share the song because it fit the theme of the gathering perfectly. (Trusting the Lord and the "More" of life and living).
The gymnasium was packed as I shared the song with the students to our Lord. As I was finishing the song, I remembered looking up and around me then for some reason my mind flashed back to remembering Velma. She loved that song and asked me frequently to sing it to her.
This is what she saw in her vision!!! In the yearbook there is even a picture of me with my guitar on the gym floor from that gathering! She was here!!! It was everything I could do to hold myself together finish the song then return to my seat a tearful pile of mush!
In my life, there are many events unexplainable, miraculous and, from my perspective, far bigger than me. I’ve been privileged to have eyes to behold the beauty, power and majesty of a God who will prove Himself if and when we choose to look for Him. He placed Velma in the life of this very young man to demonstrate that He has ways far above ours, because He had given me eyes to see and be willing to listen and learn from others around me.
My uncle was right. I took time to stop talking and listen more to the experiences of a precious, beautiful, black woman who loved the Lord with all her heart, became blind as a young woman, but still had more fire in her soul than anyone I know. Velma, while being blind saw more that I will ever see of God being sighted. She was given a detailed, clear vision of a future event before her passing about my life after she’d moved on. That event still speaks into my life to this day, as one of many God events proving His divine nature and character to me because I stopped, listened to Him and stepped out leaving footprints of faith.
Open our eyes of faith, Lord, to see Your majestic work in others, for Your glory that others too might enter your kingdom work with lives thicker, richer and more beautiful than those without You. Show us Your power, Your mercy and love, giving us Your visions that lead us forward, again, for Your glory.
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