Near our home here in rural
Illinois, there is a shelter care for adults who find themselves in need of a
place to live. It was once a nursing
home, but now most of the residents are simply adults of any age who are in
desperate need of assistance—sometimes because of mental illnesses and disease,
and sometimes from past mistakes that have robbed them of the ability to support
themselves.
For our December service, I found myself sitting by Gary. Gary has lived at Mt. Gilead for as long as I have known him. His youthful mannerisms and childish words disguise his real age (approaching sixty). To most of us, Gary is four years old. His favorite hobby is art—especially creating elaborate, detailed scribbles with as many colorful markers as he can obtain. Gary suffered a brain injury as an infant, and this is who Gary has been for about fifty-five years.
During song
time, we passed out the hymn books and watched to make sure everyone was able
to find the right number. But Gary didn’t
want a hymn book. Holding his head
between his arms, as he often sits, he just shook his head. “I can’t read.
I don’t need a book.”
As we sang,
I noticed that--hymn book or not--Gary was singing. His music was muted, as he sat with his face
bent downward into his shirt, but he knew the words to the Christmas carol we
were singing. And it was his low, garbled
words that caught my attention with irony:
“Joyful, all
ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies. . .”
Triumph?
What could Gary know of triumph? Hardly
a family member left on earth; trapped in a child’s mind and a frail, aging body;
eyes closed and head encased in his arms as he sat rocking back and forth in
his chair—the word was mocked by its own confused muttering. Triumph seemed to have skipped Gary long ago.
“Hark, the
herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn King!’”
Suddenly,
sitting by Gary, the triumph of those skies was recaptured for me. Because of that newborn King, Gary will someday
be free of the handicap that has shackled him for almost six decades. Our triumph-- not native to this old troubled
earth, nor bound by human success and prosperity—comes only through Jesus
Christ. Greater than our sin or the
sorrow that often dims our lives here on earth, Jesus Christ offers forgiveness
and eternal life to those who choose to call on Him for salvation. Because of that newborn King, the sufferings of this life are only temporary for me. They will be conquered and forgotten. Because of Jesus Christ, heaven is my real home.
Jesus Christ is our triumph.
And someday,
with a new body and mind, Gary will understand exactly what
that means.
“Thanks be unto
God for His unspeakable gift.” (II
Corinthians 9:15)
