Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Falling for God...

I think you would’ve liked to meet Alma and Avery, my grandparents. My grandpa past away in 1995. My grandma, now 90 years old, is still a picture of health.
They fell in love in their early twenties in the hills of Kentucky, as they stayed that way for over 60 years.

Avery, and hard working N&W Railroad employee would spend hour and hours widdling with his tiny pocket knife on the back porch of their small white house in the heart of Southern Ohio. Alma stayed home and poured love into their five children, about 3,000 pots of her famous chicken and dumplins, and homemaid cherry pies. Avery liked to poke and tease Alma over anything he could get her to grin over. They were recklessly in love.

Once a week they would pack up their little white car and head to Sunday morning service in a tiny Freewill Baptist Church about a 30 min. drive south, in Kentucky. No instruments were at the church, just the voices of about 30 brothers and sisters in Christ. I remember listening to grandma sing all the way home. Seven days a week they would sit at the kitchen table, bow for prayer, and share a meal together. They never spent and evening away for the other. They were enmeshed.
Their marriage was for better or for worse- but mostly for the better.

As years past on and health began to fade, I as a small child, watched intently as Alma and Avery grew closer together. Avery had a heart condition and needed constant support in maneuvering throughout the house. My 100lb. grandma would drap her arm around my 6ft grandpa each and every day, 24hrs a day, for the last 5-6 years of his life and assisted in carrying the burden that my grandpa so bravely carried. I watched on the days he could hardly lift his own foot as my grandma would jump to his every whim and cater to his every need. I watched in those years as the “I love you”s became more frequent, the “Thank you”s became more sincere, the pauses in prayer before they said a final ‘amen’ , it was as if they were sharing a moment just for the two of them ...Alma was Avery’s light, and Avery was Alma’s. I, as a 12 year old 5th grader found discomfort with the “lovey- dovey- ewwy-gooeyness” of it all, so I found ease in faking an obliviousness to the obvious. But I would secretly watch. Secretly. Have you ever felt as if you were eavesdropping on something so amazing, so beautiful that it draws your attention so strongly? This was what I experienced every evening with my grandma and grandpa.


Today, when reading the ‘top’ relationship books and articles, I laugh at some perspectives. I laugh because some authors would say that Alma and Avery were too close—too enmeshed. Perhaps, but I don’t think so. I think the two were entwined in a wonderful way. Independence is the key, “Me time” I’ve heard said is important in a relationship. For the lives of Alma and Avery—the only time was “their time”. Alma would deny every hope of her own to fulfill the hopes of Avery, and Avery would deny every hope of his own to fulfill the hope of Alma.

Alma and Avery were just a couple ‘uneducated’ ordinary Kentucky folk who “got it.”They discovered a simple secret and acted on it—to realize the true value of one anthor and spend enormous amounts of time together.

Ya know, it makes me think. Developing a relationship with God is similar to developing a relationship like the one Alma and Avery had—no, it’s exactly like that.
As Gary Moon said it in his book Falling for God “ Transforming Love requires time and a vision of forever.”

That’s the requirement of falling head over heels in Love.

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