For the final post in my Inspiration Series, I want to share a story with you. My dad is a church building consultant for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. He covers a large territory of the U.S., from Minnesota to Texas, Nebraska to Indiana. When he finds a rare moment of spare time between church meetings and plane connections, he likes to send us little updates and stories from the road. He calls them the Church Guy reports. Just two weeks ago, my dad had his third corneal transplant. With his permission I wanted to share his most recent Church Guy report. He wrote it the night before his surgery. I hope you can find inspiration in his words.

Church Guy #25

1/13/2010                                                          Driftwood

 

By this time tomorrow night I will see the world differently. This will be the third time tissue from another human being has been transplanted into my eye. I apparently wore out my last corneal transplant. Maybe I’ve seen too much. Maybe I’ve been to too many meetings. Maybe it’s a strange combination of DNA, or simply God’s ways of saying, don’t take anything for granted.

 

A new year has always been a time of reflection for me. It is a time to consider the past year and how time was spent, and a time to consider the new year and what God might have in store. This past year I took 53 flights, drove thousands of miles, attended 178 meetings, and spent 68 nights in a hotel room. I will try not to spend too much time wondering if that was time well spent. I choose to leave that up to God. It does however give one pause (as it should from time to time) as you consider your life and what it will ultimately add up to. Did you come anywhere close to what God had in mind or did you just drift by?

 

On one of my last trips in December, I found myself in Blue Springs, Missouri, with an hour or so to kill between meetings when I wandered into an antique store in an older part of the city. It was an old drug store turned into a collectable shop so packed with stuff that there was barely a path to walk or a place to sit. The lady that owned the place greeted me. She kept the old soda fountain in working order and, before long, talked me into a bowl of hand-dipped vanilla ice cream. I sat in an antique barber chair, ate my ice cream, and visited with her. When she greeted another customer, I took the time to study my surroundings. There was so much in the place that I couldn’t see anything when I first walked in, but given time, things emerged. My eye caught a life-size zebra that I’d somehow missed. I learned it was an old merry-go-round animal that had been refurbished and the stripes were made of individual white and black beans (48,000 of them) glued in place to recreate a genuine zebra pattern. I will not wonder if that was time well spent. I choose to leave that up to God.

 

Next my eye wandered to a piece of driftwood. It was amazing. It stood almost five foot high and was an intricately carved sculpture with intersecting veins of wood. It was like a human leg where each individual artery and vein could be seen with the muscle and tissue stripped away. I’ve always been fascinated by driftwood. I imagine a tree limb or branch separated because of storm, strife, or death, finding its way to the water for a journey that takes years or even decades as sand and water slowly shape and form it until someone happens by and claims it as a work of art.

 

It occurs to me that life can be a lot like driftwood. Someone falls off, disconnected from their source of life or love, and through storms or death they drift, shaped by what flows around them, wondering or hoping if anyone will claim them as a work of art. Years and decades may pass and they wonder if it was time well spent. Did anyone notice?

 

On my last call of the year, I pulled out of a church in St. Louis onto a four-lane highway and headed north, stopping at the first light. When it turned green no one moved. As is usual, I became impatient and tried to see ahead and figure out what the hold up was. As the line began to move, I realized that a funeral procession was leaving a church and turning onto the highway. I counted 50 some cars. “Big funeral,” I muttered. The procession moved through several light changes as I waited. It was then I noticed something unusual out of the corner of my eye. As the procession made its way onto the highway, it turned in front of a group of pre-school aged children lined up at the edge of the road. They stood there about 40 in number, five or six in a row separated by adults with their heads bowed quietly and still. I realized then that they were paying tribute to the person who died. 

 

I began to wonder who the person was. Was she a pre-school teacher? Was he a long-time volunteer at the church school? Obviously they had some kind of connection to these little kids. They weren’t jumping around as pre-school kids do. They were still with their heads bowed. They seemed sad. They were going to miss whoever it was.

 

I decided that this person’s time was well spent. They weren’t driftwood. God had shaped them not by the flow of some disconnected source but by purpose and meaning. I decided whoever was in that coffin had chosen well. They had been faithful. Someone would miss them. They left something behind. They counted. I imagined them being held tightly in heaven hearing, “Well done good and faithful servant.”

 

And I now wonder about the person whose cornea I will receive tomorrow. Did they spend their time well? I choose to leave that up to God. I choose to think they weren’t driftwood. I choose to think that they will go on seeing.