A Memory about awakening

               

                Stories abound, both written and oral, about the amazing physical abilities that can be “awakened” or stirred up when people face danger.  Someone might actually lift extremely heavy objects, such as cars, to save a person’s life.  Likewise, firefighters combatting raging flames in California, often work stressful and strenuous hours well past the time for their needed rest hoping to save homes and landscapes.  On another level, spiritual awakenings, often movements or revival, are a rich part of America’s history.  The Great Awakening, the wave of fervor to abandon “dead” practices and rituals, sought a more expressive and intimate connection with God, beginning in 18^th century Scotland and England and then coming to the colonies as well.   

                What may be harder to recognize and share is not information about the big spiritual movements or impressive physical fetes, but true Christian outpourings on individuals at times of crisis.  Such was the case for my husband after his father’s planned open heart surgery in l997.  Grandpa seemed to be recovering and almost ready to leave the hospital when he passed out while attempting to stand by his bed.  Because he had aspirated some substance like food into his lungs, a routine recovery became a very different experience.  This crisis seems to have presented an opportunity which awakened “the priest” in my husband as he ministered to his father so powerfully and expressively. 

                What makes this story even more remarkable is the background of my husband Jim’s relationship with his parents up to this point.  Strains, critical attitudes and resulting hurt and ill will had been at work in family relationships well before my husband’s generation.  By Grandpa’s 79^th year, it had been especially hurtful for my husband that his parents’ seemed to take so little interest in our children’s activities,  such as athletic events.  On the other hand, my parents were very “present” in our family’s lives.  One time, my father even came to a baseball game after receiving a chemotherapy treatment that very day.

                Those three weeks Jim’s father fought for his life, something came alive in my husband’s spirit, readying him for the unanticipated moment that arose.  His mother and sister had been fairly constant in their hospital visiting, and my husband was generally inhibited in their presence. However, after Grandpa’s setback, something fortuitous happened.  Jim had been called at school about his father’s changed condition and felt compelled to go to the hospital before the end of the school day.  When he arrived, surprisingly, he found his father alone and about to have a tube put down his throat which would hinder his ability to speak.  Jim took that small but significant piece of time to encourage his father in matters of faith.  Grandpa had been estranged from his brother; now Jim presented the need to forgive his brother and get right with God.  Jim also shared his own faith in those few but eventful minutes, and his father responded favorably to it all.  Then the tube was inserted, something his mother had not anticipated when she and her daughter had gone home for lunch. 

                By the time they returned, Grandpa was on a ventilator, and Jim had ministered the much needed conversation about faith and forgiveness.  I believe in so selflessly being the God-ordained priest his father needed, quietly, privately, Jim’s own hurt and disappointment from many years were washed away by the Holy Spirit.  Jim was never bothered by past events again, truly experiencing the peace of God.  The next few weeks, he would be with his father at night, talking about times in the past and playing some music, including Jesuit songs on an old tape player.  His mom and sister would cover the days, unaware of the meaningful exchange between father and son.

                Although there were times of some hope, the struggle for life was mostly uphill for Grandpa.  I think the crucial minutes before the ventilator went in were the only pointed times Jim spoke to his Dad about spiritual matters.  He was just a kind, loving and attentive son, wonderfully enabled to do so by the grace of God with no hard feelings.  I cannot think of another time, at least not that I know of, where Jim himself experienced an awakening of the presence of God within him to such an extent, giving him a holy boldness at a critical time.  Surely, it was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the awakening it stirred up in Jim that changed the course of both of their lives, eternally.