This Sunday in church we were all tasked to remember a time when we received a surprising, extravagant gift. It was a simply task of recall that struck me like a swinging baseball bat right in the heart.
As I sat there trying to remember, the following story came rushing back into my mind as if stored there for a long time and waiting to pounce at this exact moment. And it did pounce. Everyone's eyes were mostly closed at this point and I was pretty grateful, because I probably looked a lot more devastated than I did overwhelmed with happiness, gratitude and emotion.
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I was sporting a pretty hard-core mullet with streaks of blonde hair running through my all-too-dark mane. It worked well with the rock-star image I was trying to project. I wore glasses back then as well and had overcome a lot of self-esteem issues because of them. Lately though I was feeling more in control - more confident and more appreciated.
My Mom and Dad who had been working that day had just returned home and I could hear them moving around in the house beyond my room. Within the next few minutes I was being summoned by my mother to join them in the kitchen. I figured that we would firm up our plans for the evening's festivities. We always eat as a celebration for birthdays. Well, we eat and we hang out together. Two of the more significant activities that seemed to solidify our little family over the years.
I crawled out of my bed and stretched a bit before leaving my room and walking down the hall towards the kitchen. There they were. Mom and Dad were both standing in the middle space between hallway and kitchen and each had a goofy look on their face.
"Yes?"
"Happy birthday" Mom said with a sly smile.
"Oh, thanks" I looked at Dad as he was handing me something across the space between me and Mom. I reached out to grasp it's handle.
It was a hard case, plastic with a handle in the shape of... a... guitar. It had the word Ovation written in chromish colored font in one corner. I set it down on a chair and looked back at Dad.
He smiled back at me, "Open it."
I undid the first few buckles that kept the lid secure and pulled up on the case only to realize I missed a buckle in back. So I leaned over and unsnapped the last hasp and pulled up on the lid anxiously.
There it was. Sitting inside the case surrounded by felt was this beautiful, amazing guitar. It was colored with oranges, yellows and browns in a sunburst pattern and had a new set of strings on it. I just stood there staring. How, what...
I looked back at Mom dumbfounded.
"Well, take it out. Play it."
I reached into the case and grabbed the neck of the guitar and pulled it out. It had a solid feel to the narrow performance neck of the thing. I strummed a few chords and my eyes began to get moist.
"Like it?" Dad asked.
"How? I.."
"It's yours. Happy Birthday. I bought this from a customer. It's electric too."
I adjusted the knobs installed on the guitar. It was phenomenal. I had been playing guitar since I was about 5 years old and until that moment I had always played cheap guitars purchased from Mexico for about 50 dollars at most.
I was always interested in music, but in High School I actually found out that I was good at it. I had started going to church kind of late in life at about 16, and there they asked me to play the guitar all the time, but I didn't have a guitar. I had to borrow the youth pastor's guitar to play.
My parents had purchased a professional instrument for me on my birthday. I had no idea at the time what this gift meant and how it would impact me until much later in life.
The Anti-Message
Up until that point I thought that I had seen and heard glimpses of God, but that it mostly came from the church I was attending. I had literally spent hours studying the Bible and reading stories and sections of it. Once I discovered church, it was the thing that I did all the time. Every Sunday and Wednesday and every time in between I was there learning and praying and witnessing and discussing scriptures.
In fact I spent so much time at church, my Mom and Dad had to sit me down and ask me to take it easy. They said I was spending too much time there. What I did not realize is that they were asking me to spend more time with them. The sad part about it is that even if they asked me point blank back then to please spend more time with them, I would have continued to go to church every time the doors were open.
You might think that is good. If so, you are wrong. I missed out on a LOT because of church. This is just one of the things that it impacted. Anyway, amidst all the game playing and hanging out with church friends and laughing and praying for each other there was something else going on. A sort of "anti-message" that was being preached over and again in my head.
The anti-message had a lot to do with rules, and crucifixion and judgement and Hell and eternal punishment and discipline and conviction and sin and submission, even unforgivable sin and death and an angry god. The two main messages I heard said this "I am an all loving Father God that wants to take care of you forever." Then there was this "If you don't like me or want anything to do with me though, I will abandon you to torture and death forever -- no second chances, no mercy ever."
I literally soaked in the love of God in those early years. I took every opportunity I could to feel that love and live in it from the first message. But the other message, I avoided it like the plague. Deep down I always doubted that that was actually God. I mean, they preached that message way more than the other. You might even say we were brain washed to believe in death and punishment. But there was this nagging piece of reality in my mind and heart that said "not true" every time I heard the anti-message.
I usually ignored it. Years later I realized that the voices that said "not true" sounded exactly like my Mom and Dad.
The Gift
So how significant was this gift? Let me elaborate a bit on my upbringing. My Mom and Dad were really self-made people by this point in their lives. Everything they had -- the cars, the house, the ability to buy me a 500 dollar guitar on my birthday -- they had worked really hard for.
They did not have well-off parents, a trust to rely on, people in their life to send them to college or support them otherwise. They had each other, and a lot of hard work way before I ever came along.
So my Dad did what he could to provide for us while Mom stayed home with the kids (all four of us) until it didn't make sense for her to do that. Dad sometimes worked three different jobs during this time. What do you think they wanted for me?
When I was a bit younger I was all excited about being a barber one day, just like Dad, but NO. They would not have that. They wanted me to go to college, graduate and get a professional job somewhere and not have to worry and work as hard as they did. It was a simple request, especially considering what it is they had done to get me there.
They really wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer or do some other career that promises financial security. What did I want to do? I wanted to be the next Amy Grant (excluding gender of course). I was going to be a musical performer and had signed up for college to go and do that.
I was pumped full of confidence by my high school peers and felt like I really had what it took to do music for a living. My parents, supported me. They supported my crazy ideas so well, they were willing to put up the money to buy me a real professional instrument. They even offered to pay for college and let me stay at their lake house while I went to school. They paid for everything -- school, gasoline, meals, lodging.
I remember that semester at college. I made a lot of realizations then. One, I am not a super-star. There are hundreds of people, if not thousands that sing and play better than me and even seem to have a natural ability for it. My first day at college pretty much inundated me with that sort of knowledge. In High School I was a super-star, but in college I was a nobody Freshman.
The other thing I realized was that my parents were losing weight. They both were working so much they did not hardly have time to eat at home and so the kitchen cupboards were empty. The refrigerator - empty. I began to realize that they were sacrificing everything for me, including their own well-being. They were putting it all on the line for their college bound son - their super-star.
I dropped out of school after the semester was over much to their utter disappointment. I then soon joined the Air Force and left home and got married. There was a lot of confusion about those last few months at home - a lot of pain and hurt and things unsaid. The hardest part for me was telling my parents that I was not going to school anymore. They worked so hard to get me there and I failed them. I felt like there was nothing I could do to gain their confidence back and their trust and so I left - a failure.
I was so wrong. I had never lost their confidence - never lost their trust. They loved me so much and I could not even see it. They would have done anything for me - anything. These two people know how to love.
I was ill-equipped to receive it. See I had applied what I knew about God, the anti-message to my parents. In my mind, I had done the unforgivable sin. I failed and I rejected my parent's ways ultimately turning my back on them. What did Mom and Dad do? Did they banish me to some form of hell - an eternity of punishment? Did they judge me as too far gone -- did they turn their back on me because they could not look upon me as a sinner?
Hell no. They began to slowly embrace me for my new decisions. They supported everything I chose to do whole heartedly. They told me over and again how proud they were of me. The accepted the new John, and then the next version of John and the next. To this day we cannot have one conversation about politics or religion, but I know that they love me, and they tell me all the time that they are so proud of me.
The gift of the guitar was their way of saying, "no matter what you decide to do, we are 100% behind you boy. We loved you when you were born and when you wanted to hang out with us all the time. We love you when you want absolutely nothing to do with us, and we love you now and always. You cannot escape our love for you, even when you reject us. Go and do your music son, and do it well. We are so proud of you."
Everything I need to know...
This is how God must feel about his creation. This is who God is. Not some angry, egotistical giant, waiting to pounce on you because you rejected him or her. Not some people-programmer in the sky that demands you follow his will and his will only regardless of your desires. Not some hopeless lover that cries at the loss of another human-being somehow as much a victim of sin and the consequences of it as his own creation. God is a Father. God is a Mother. God is so proud of you.
