Theo of Golden - Reflections (3)

 Theo of Golden – Reflections (3)

Why did Theo wait so long to come to Golden? What was he thinking with each advancing year as the pages of the calendar turned from December to January?

We have three wall calendars in our home. One is in our office, this could be any theme, this year it is one mailed to all residents by our local chamber of commerce. Another, in our eat-in kitchen area, has songbirds on it this year. I always give Vickie a calendar for Christmas, last year had beach scenes, the year before that folk art, this year songbirds. The third is a perpetual calendar, made of wood. Every month you rotate the numbered blocks and so it goes from year to year. There are special blocks with painted images for holidays – Labor Day shows a pregnant woman. 

Every January I wonder if my date of death is written with invisible ink on the calendars. Like many of us, I have lost friends and loved ones before their time – or before what I think should have been their time. Vickie writes dates of passing on the calendar, May is a crowded month.  I don’t wonder about my date of death morbidly, I look forward to being in the greater Presence of Jesus and to being with friends, family, and our puppies. After all, we are seeking that City whose Builder and Maker is God.

I tell people that I am in stoppage time. That is a term for the time a soccer (football to the rest of the world) match is extended to account for time during regulation in which play was stopped for one reason or another. I sure would like to score a goal or two during stoppage time or perhaps make a nice defensive play. 

Theo waited a long time before coming to Golden; we also know from the story that Theo was looking forward to heaven, something Tony grappled with, for Tony had been to hell and couldn’t imagine anything but hell. 

What did it take for Theo to finally travel to Golden? What was happening within Theo?

I don’t know and I won’t conjecture right now because I don’t want to give elements of the story away. However, I will ask if there are relationships and questions and matters in our own lives that are unresolved. If so, how long will we wait to seek resolution? Theo was pushing the limit at 86 years old, that is serious stoppage time. 

One of the most saintly women I have known, Elizabth Furlong, when she was in her 80s said to me, “When I look back, I could have done better. I could have treated people better. I could have done more for others.” The important thing about Elizabeth at this time was that she was most certainly being a blessing to others, including as a ministry companion to me, her younger pastor, as I made home visits and engaged in office counseling. 

I can say what Elizabeth said, I could have done better, many times in many ways. It is not a comfortable realization. Having acknowledged it, what shall I do? Hopefully I can respond to the grace of Jesus every day when I meet others, whether it is for a brief moment or in an extended conversation, affirming God’s love for them and His desire for an intimate relationship with them. 

Are there things within me that need to be put to death through the Cross of Christ? Are there things in me that ought to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ? Old age is not the time to coast, but to keep the finish line in sight and run the race God has given to us. 

The grace and affirmation that Theo was pouring into others flowed from a dual awareness within Theo; one was a sense of God’s blessing and mercy over the course of a long life; the other was a sense of missed opportunity, a sense of what might have been, a sense of misplaced values. (I’ll not be more specific than this right now.)

What can we do with these conflicting thoughts and emotions but give them to Jesus and trust Him to redeem our ups and downs, to cover and forgive our sins, and to give us grace to be a blessing to others? Nothing we have done has ever surprised Him. 

Theo blessed others out of his joy, his pain, and his bittersweetness. We see that his joy in music and art allowed him to connect with others, encouraging them, sharing the joy of artistic creativity. He drew from his joy in creation, in birds, rivers, sunsets, trees, in blessing others. From his pain and sorrow he connected with Kendrick, Tony, and Ellen. And from his bittersweetness a bond was formed with Asher. 

Are we allowing our kind heavenly Father to take our life experience and use it as a source for blessing others? In 2 Corinthians Chapter One Paul writes about a terrible time of suffering he and his friends experienced, he says that it was like a death sentence. But then he also says that the comfort they received from God during that time enabled them in turn to comfort others. I express it this way, “Our pain, for others gain, to Christ’s glory.”

We see this in Theo.

We are never too young or too old to live this way. We who are older, however, have a special opportunity to do so, our stoppage time can be our golden time. 

Let me please say a word about “resolution.” Not all difficulties can be resolved, not all loose ends can be tied up, not all wrongs can be made right. Theo learned this in a certain letter he once received, if he didn’t already know it. However, later in life Theo did what he could, and much more, much more by God’s grace. What Theo may have thought was his one mission, turned into something so much more. A grain of wheat, dying the ground, can bring forth quite the harvest. 

What can we do with those things that cannot be resolved? I think we must give them to our dear Lord Jesus and trust Him to work redemptively in our lives and in the lives of others – including those whom we have hurt, and who may have hurt us. What else can we do? 

Beyond that, we can be good stewards of our experiences, the good and the bad, the joyful and the terrible, asking our Father to use them in us and through us for the blessing of others. Why waste such experiences? They could not have come into our lives had they not passed through the hand of our Father; let us trust Him to use them to bless others, so that others may see His Face in us and through us. 

Let me please close with an example. I have a friend my age whose father was an alcoholic. When his Dad was sober he was outgoing and personable, but when he was drunk he was vindictive and mean, often beating my friend’s mother. My friend’s childhood was filled with uncertainty, sometimes terror, and fear. As my friend grew to adulthood his relationship with his father was complicated, and within my friend was an element of loathing and disgust for his Dad. 

Then one day God spoke to my friend’s heart and asked my friend if he was willing to allow God to use the pain within him to touch others, to be gracious to others, to bless others. At the same time my friend wondered what it was like for his father to live the way he had, it could not be a good experience, it must be miserable. In Christ, my friend learned to use his pain, for others gain, to Christ’s glory. 

This was not to excuse the father’s behavior, but it was to cast it in a different perspective, it was to introduce the element of redemption into a story of total despair. In this particular instance, a time came when my friend and his father had a sweet relationship, and toward the end of the father’s life he came to know Jesus…so we never know…we never really know how the story will end. 

Why…our stories may be like Theo’s…they may just keep going.