Remembering My Uncle Jack

Each of us will remember and give thanks for Jack Hester is his or her own unique way: husband, father, father-in-law, grandfather, great-grandfather, pastor, mentor, broadcaster, evangelist, neighbor, encourager, friend.  For me, this man is Uncle Jack, my mother’s baby brother.  Let me tell you how I’ll remember him and why I’ll always thank God for his life. 

Jack was our family chaplain.  I believe this is the first family funeral I’ve attended at which Jack didn’t minister.  His parents.  All but one of his six brothers and sisters.  Nieces.  In-laws.  We called upon him in times of deep need and he faithfully brought the comfort of his presence and a word of hope from God.  He taught us to be there for each other and, in the storms of life to stand upon the rock of our faith in Jesus. 

My Uncle Jack was also our family instigator.  When our family got together, Jack was always the ring master.  He always had some kind of foolishness going on to lighten our spirits and fill the room with laughter.  He enjoyed seeing other people enjoy their time together and he had a gift for helping that happen. 

Jack was our family instigator in another way I’ll always cherish.  He challenged us to make memories while we were together.  He would draft some combination of his sisters to recreate the Hester Sisters’ Trio, to sing one of the songs of the faith as they did so often for their father, Rev. W.R. Hester, Sr. during his ministry.  I have sweet memories of hearing my mom and aunts lifting a song in three-part harmony with Aunt Shirley accompanying them on the piano. 

My cousin Joy faced significant health challenges her entire life.  She was one the world might overlook.  But time and time again, Jack would call her to the front of the family and give her confidence to share her beautiful song and her beautiful spirit with all of us.  Jack never let us go through the motions of being together without celebrating and sharing what matters most.  We need to shoulder that mantle and make Godly memories when we are blessed to be together. 

Jack was a natural entertainer.  When you spotted him in a group of people, they were always smiling and probably laughing.  I remember hearing of him going to McDonalds with a group of his minister friends.  Jack wore a pair of very dark glasses and, claiming he could not see, asked the employee at the counter to read the entire menu to him to help him make a selection for lunch.  After he finished his meal, Jack, still wearing his glasses, took the wheel of the car, drove through the drive through and thanked the staff for their good service. 

When I was on one of my first dates as a teenager, my date and I happened to run into my Uncle Jack.  I introduced him as the minister in our family and thought this would make my stock go up with my date.  Jack looked at us and said, "Remember that puppy love leads to a dog's life."  I didn't marry that woman, if you were wondering. 

When he served Nine Forks Baptist Church a few years ago, Jack heard that one of his members had worked for hours pruning some fruit trees on his property.  That night, Jack slipped

into that member’s yard, took the pruned branches off the pile at the road, and stuck them back on the trees, weaving them into the remaining branches. 

And I can’t count the times I heard him tease my Aunt Shirley by telling a group he had found the perfect place to hide her Christmas presents, the oven in the kitchen. And you always took it as a good sport, Aunt Shirley. 

I don’t know anyone who needs to be reminded that life is hard.  I know many people who need to be reminded that life is good, that we were created to enjoy life’s journey, and that a good laugh, as one wise person said, is a first cousin to a prayer.  My Uncle Jack was a minister of joy who lifted the spirits of countless people and reminded us all that life is wonderful because God is wonderful.  He brought to life the words of Paul when he wrote,

(Philemon 1:7) Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints.

Jack was a visionary.  He saw the power of media to share the gospel with many people and in new ways.  Many of you remember his daily radio broadcast, “The Gospel Dynamite Hour.”  One of the great joys of my first years in ministry was when Uncle Jack invited me to fill in for him on the radio for a few days. 

In an inspired act of creative genius, Jack saw a way to tell the story of Christ’s return as though it were actually happening through the recordings he directed, “The Rapture” and “The Tribulation.”  How many churches and Sunday School classes and families listened to those dramatic portrayals and thought about their faith and their future.  Jack knew that the God who created everything wants us to do His work creatively too. 

Jack was a pastor to thousands of people in several churches.  Grace and Cannon Memorial and Powdersville First and Nine Forks and many other places he served in one way or another.  Jack was a shepherd to his people, a friend to his fellow Christian, an example to the flock. 

But if you asked me to sum up the essence of my Uncle Jack’s life, who he was in the marrow of his bones, I would say this. 

Jack was an evangelist.  He lived to tell the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.  I heard him say so many times, “Some people may not understand why I get a little bit excited.”  We understood, Uncle Jack.  The focus of your ministry, the purpose of your life, your greatest joy was leading people to Christ. 

The Bible says so clearly that our human minds can’t begin to grasp heaven, so our frail words always fall far short.  But in my imagination, I see Jack being led through heaven by the Lord Jesus.  And at a certain place in that journey, they pass through a great multitude of people.  And Jack realizes that these saints, these citizens of heaven are not only looking at Jesus with joy, they are looking at him with smiles on their faces and joy in their eyes.  And Jack, never slow to speak up, might ask his Savior, “Lord Jesus, I know why these dear people are looking at you in worship and wonder, but why are they looking at me with such smiles?” 

And I hear our Lord saying, “Because Jack, my child, my servant, they know that they would not be here if not for you.” 

God bless you, Uncle Jack.

Welcome home.

You go with our blessing, our admiration and our love.  

You Will Love Others as You Love Yourself

When Linda and I were first married and living at Southeastern Seminary, my brother, Barry, came for a visit.  Our little duplex was next to the tennis courts, so we had the idea to find a fourth and play doubles.  Our friend, Mike, was happy to join Barry to take on Linda and me in a little friendly competition. 

You need to know that, at this stage of my life, I had never used the words “friendly” and “competition” in the same sentence, especially when my brother was involved.  I put a great deal of pressure on myself to win, criticized myself mercilessly for every mistake and, generally, suffered through the match, which we lost. 

That was not the true tragedy of the match.  The worst thing about that day was that I was as tough on Linda as I was on myself.  The same high-pressure, “Why can’t you do it right?” “The value of my life depends on how well we hit this little fuzzy ball across the net” things I said to myself, I said out loud to her.  I hurt her feelings.  I ruined what could have been a fun time.  In fact, I had a nightmare in which I heard an emergency room doctor ask Linda, “Mrs. Vaughan, before I remove that tennis racket from your husband’s body, can you tell me how it got there?”

What I saw so clearly and painfully that day was that the cruel way I treated myself in competitive situations set the tone for how I treated others.  I began to realize a great truth. 

I will love others as I love myself; as much or as little, as graciously or as critically, as affirming or as condemning as the way I relate to myself.  So will you.  If you don’t love yourself, you won’t love others very well either.  

Love God With All You Are

Tomorrow will mark a year since my mom left this life to go home.  In the last few years of her life, my mom’s memory, especially her ability to recall new things, got very weak.  So, more and more, we found ourselves talking about old times and very good times. One of the subjects she enjoyed most was recalling her service as director of several dramas presented at our home church.  She talked the most about the church’s presentation of Earnest Emurian’s “The Last Supper.”  My Mom, with the persuasiveness of a salesman and the persistence of General Patton, enlisted sixteen men from our small church to play a part, to dress up in a costume, wear a beard, by growth or glue, wear knee-high hose so their white feet wouldn't shine, and, each in his turn, recite a page-long monologue as one of Jesus’ disciples.  Here is her finished product. 

          What Mom remembered and cherished most about that experience was the difference that brief time on stage made in the lives of those men.  Several of them had been part-time long-time pew fillers, present in worship but doing little else in the church.  But, she said, with great joy and satisfaction,

“When we got them to play a part in that drama, they never went back to the back pew.  They became leaders and servants.  They became the heart of our church.”

          If I dare paraphrase my Mom, the director, when these men experienced the joy of loving God with more of themselves, putting more of their hearts and souls and minds and strength to work in God’s service, they never again wanted to offer God the minimum payment.  They loved God with more and more of who they were and tasted the truly abundant Christian life.  So can we.  

My Christmas Copernican Revolution

My Christmas Copernican Revolution

“What did I get?”

That’s the question on every child’s mind as he or she awakens on Christmas morning and races to the Christmas tree.  That journey of Christmas morning discovery is joyful, exciting and memorable.  I was looking through some old family pictures and saw picture after picture of my sister, brother and me on Christmas morning in front of the tree, surrounded by Santa loot.  Judging from the looks on our faces, we had found a pretty satisfying answer to the “What did I get?” question. 

“What did I get?” was pretty much the meaning of Christmas for me during those early years of my life.  Yes, I knew the story of the birth of Jesus and could tell it in great detail and with deep personal meaning, but honestly I was more excited about what I would get for Jesus’ birthday. 

My attitude changed one Christmas morning.  I don’t know if I had grown up enough to see things differently or if a new thought just popped into my mind.  On that Christmas morning, my attention momentarily shifted away from taking inventory of my Christmas treasure and I noticed my father sitting across the room watching his three children enjoying the big event.  What I noticed for the first time that Christmas was that Santa, as I understood how Christmas happened, hadn’t left much of anything for my dad.  He opened a gift from my mom, a painfully practical gift by my standards, but not much else.  This realization so gripped me that I spoke up, “Dad, you didn’t get very much for Christmas!” He smiled a knowing smile and answered, “I got everything I wanted.”  I didn’t understand his answer that day.  I didn’t understand how he seemed to enjoy watching me wade through my Christmas goodies as much as if he’d been given such a bounty himself.  But, on that Christmas morning the seeds were planted that led to a revolution in my young mind. 

I’ve heard folks say of self-centered people, “He needs a Copernican revolution!”  Copernicus discovered that our earth is not the center of the universe.  When that discovery is applied to people, it means that we all need to learn that we are not the center of the universe.  Not everything in life is about me. 

My Christmas Copernican revolution was the realization that my Dad measured his Christmas by a question that was the polar opposite of the one I innocently but childishly used.   He didn’t approach Christmas asking “What will I get?” but, instead, “What can I give?”  His Christmas joy came from giving joy to his family.  A few years ago, I wrote a song about my Dad, what I remember about him and learned from him.  Part of that song is based on the lesson I learned that Christmas.

Christmas morning magic;

That top of the wish list toy.

I didn’t notice there wasn’t much for you.

But you just wanted happiness for your daughter and your boys

And a chance to make our Christmas dreams come true. 

Dad came to Christmas asking, “What can I give?”  That attitude is much more harmonious with the meaning of the season.  Christmas happened because God looked upon this world, in need of hope and salvation and asked, “What can I give?”  He gave His best.  He gave His Son.  He gave to make our dreams come true. 

Many years later, writing this as a father and a grandfather, I fully understand how my father, without many gifts to open, got everything he wanted for Christmas.  He received the joy Jesus promised to those who know that the world is bigger than them and that giving, not getting, is the Christmas thing to do.  

Who Would Be Born in a Place Like This?

Christmas Day of 1981 found me as the chaplain on call at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center.  Actually, I had volunteered to work that day.  I was only single guy in the chaplain’s department and I wanted my coworkers to be with their wives and children.  I volunteered for another reason.  This was the first Christmas after dad died and I thought it was better to keep busy and to focus my energies on others.  Christmas Day in the hospital is tough, because all but the sickest patients have gone home.  Those who remain face very serious illness.  As I walked the halls that day, seeing very sick patients around me and feeling terrible pain inside me, I asked myself, Can Jesus be born in a place like this? When I got to the end of that very busy day and looked back at the people and problems I’d seen, I realized that Jesus, in fact, had come into the messy painful places of our hearts. 

He came—to the parents and grandparents of a tragically stillborn child, a family that knew that because of Jesus, they had hope of one day holding their child in heaven. 

He came—to a woman who wanted to go home, but knew that her circumstances were taking her, instead, to a nursing home, a woman who, amid all the unwanted changes in her life, clung to the truth that would not change, the Savior who is forever faithful, the love from which nothing could ever separate her. 

He came—to a man who invited me to share the Christmas that his family had brought to him at the hospital because he couldn’t go home, and we knew he never would. It was a happy day; it was a good day because he knew that every day is a gift from God, every day a gift to share with those you love. 

He came to my family as we faced our first Christmas without my father.

Who would be born in places like that?  The one who was born in a stable.  The Savior of the world.  The Son of God.  Jesus. 

He will be born in you today, if you will only believe that He is born in stables, in far less than perfect places, in sinful broken people like you and me. 

Do you believe that?

Then ask Him, welcome Him, invite Him, and Jesus will be born in you, just as you are. 

 This story is included in my book, The Stories of My Life, a collection of more than 200 life experiences that taught me about the art of living.  You can find the book at Amazon.com and at St. Andrews Baptist Church in Columbia, SC. 

Living in a Place Called Evergreen

Living in a Place Called Evergreen

I was preparing to drive to another part of the state to share a few days of church camp with our youth group.  As I was packing, I got a telephone call from my sister, Debbie.  Preacher Floyd is in the hospital, she told me.  Rev. Harry Floyd was pastor of my home church during some of my most formative years.  During his ministry, I became a Christian.  His hands placed me beneath the waters of baptism.  Years later, he gave me my first invitation to lead revival services.  He returned to my home church to preach my father’s funeral.  He sat on my ordination council and preached my ordination sermon.  On my shelf is a set of books he gave me from his own library.  In ministry, my first reflex is to do what Harry Floyd did.  When I heard that he was in the hospital in Florence, I knew what I needed to do. 

I left a little early for camp and drove to the hospital in Florence, SC where he had been a patient.  When I asked for his room number, the woman at the information desk said that he had been discharged the day before.  But amazingly, she knew Harry Floyd.  They attended the same church.  She found his home telephone number and got me in touch with Harry.  He said he would love to see me and gave me directions to his home.  He lived, not in Florence, but in a little town called Evergreen. Armed with these directions to a place I’d never been or heard of, I headed out to find him.  Remembering all that he had given to me and to my family, I wanted to give something back to him. 

I wasn’t sure what I would find.  His life had been anything but easy in recent years.  Not long after his retirement, his wife, Lois, underwent bypass surgery.  In those days, blood was not screened or tested as closely as today.  Mrs. Floyd was infected with the AIDS virus from a blood transfusion, and, for the next several years, died a very slow and painful death.  The oldest of his three daughters suffers from an illness which now has her in a nursing home, her life slipping away.  His own eyes that so loved to read the scriptures and study commentaries and write messages, were growing dim.  He is legally blind.  Some form of asthma makes his breathing difficult.  And now, I learned, his back keeps him in constant agonizing pain.  “How,” I wondered, “could one who served so well and so long end up like this?  And what can I say or do to help him?” 

The directions were clear enough, even for me.  I found Evergreen and soon found his house.  When I knocked on the door I was greeted by Rev. Floyd’s new wife, a lifelong friend God brought back into his life some time after Lois had died.  Merlee met me at the door and took me to the den where Harry was stretched out in his recliner, the only place where he could get some relief from the back pain. 

As I entered the room, he heard my voice from across the room and greeted me.  I came to him, gave him a very careful hug, and sat down beside him.  When we’d been talking a few minutes, I realized that he wasn’t telling me much about himself.  He wanted to know about me and what I was doing.  He asked about the church I was serving.  He wanted to know about my family.  I bragged a little or maybe a lot.  Somehow, with all that he was facing, he had the capacity to step outside himself.  I was amazed.  I know how pain can move the focus of your life inside yourself.  I wanted to give him a chance to talk about his own life, so I turned the conversation to him and how he was doing.

That’s when it happened.  That’s when I saw something more impressive than any worship service he’d ever led, more touching than any story he’d ever told, more profound than any sermon he’d ever preached.  I saw the glory of a grateful heart.  He was honest about his physical problems.  I wouldn’t settle for less than that.  He told me about the surgery he needed but might not be able to endure.  That physical assessment and those medical facts came from his head.  Then he opened his heart. 

He thanked God for his years with Lois, and now for bringing Merlee into his life to share his journey.  He glowed as he spoke of how he and Merlee had accepted and cherished each other’s children and grandchildren.  He spoke with pride and joy about the churches he had served, the friends he had made along the way, and how God had allowed him to make his living doing what he loved most. He celebrated the technology that allowed him to listen to some books on tape, since he could no longer read them very well.  And then he looked at me with both the tears of back pain and the tears of spiritual joy in his eyes and said,

Ronald, I’m like the ‘old boy’ who said that God had been so good to him, he couldn’t think of anything to ask for when he prayed.  God has been so good to me that I don’t know what to ask Him for.  That’s how I am.   

I didn’t know what to say.  I wondered to myself,

Why aren’t you angry about the Aids-tainted blood that took your wife away from you so painfully and so young? Why aren’t you bitter about the illness that has reduced your daughter to an invalid? How can you be so thankful when you’re spending most of your time in a recliner, hardly able to see, struggling to get a deep breath, and hurting almost every moment of every day? 

Simply because, in the midst of all of the shadows, the struggles, the losses, the pain of his life, with failing eyes, he saw what many of us can’t or won’t see.  He saw good and he saw God.  And because he did, he was more alive than I am on many days. 

As I left him and drove out of town toward camp, I once again saw the little sign which read Evergreen.  And I thought, “Yeah, that’s where he lives.  More importantly, that’s how he lives.”  His joy doesn’t ebb and flow with the seasons of life.  A grateful heart is ever-green. 

This story is included in my first book, The Stories of My Life, available at Amazon.com (link on this blog page) or the offices of St. Andrews Baptist Church, Columbia, SC.  

The Last Tear

The Last Tear

Psalm 30:5 is such a gift of hope for the Christian, and especially for the Christian who hurts.  That verse says,

(Psalm 30:5) Weeping may go on all night, but joy comes with the morning.

That’s a message for here and now; after a night of pain, of hurt, of grief, of weeping, a new day of joy will come to those who belong to God.  God gives many beautiful sunrises in this life and we praise Him for them. 

But this verse also points us to the end of the story, to the day when our journey through every dark valley is over and we reach home.  God allowed John to see that eternal morning and the healing it will bring to us. 

(Revelation 21:4) He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

I was the chaplain on call at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center when the telephone rang.  I knew that call would come some day, but I wasn’t ready to hear it.  My dad was in an ambulance on his way to the hospital.  He had been at home for weeks, suffering from a brain tumor that medical science didn’t know how to fight.  The growing tumor pressed too hard upon dad’s brain, causing a cerebral hemorrhage that would, in a matter of moments or hours, end his life.  I rushed from one hospital to another, from Spartanburg where I worked to the emergency room of the Greenville General Hospital. 

Two deacons from my home church met me at the door and took me to my family in one of the private waiting rooms the hospital provides for families of critically ill patients.  The other members of my family had seen Dad and, for the moment, had seen enough.  My brother, Barry, offered to go with me so that I, too, could have a few moments with dad.  The second I saw him, I knew that the tumor had struck a mortal blow to the strongest man I’ve ever known.  A breathing tube kept his airway opened, but he struggled for air like a fish out of water.  His eyes seemed to look beyond the ceiling, no longer seeing this world.  He couldn’t respond to us by speaking or even squeezing my hand, but I thought that, just maybe, he could still hear us.  So Orin’s two boys tried to express our gratitude for a father’s lifetime of love in a few words.  We told him that we loved him.  We thanked him for being such a great dad.  We told him that we would always be proud to be his sons.  Then we just stood there, watching and waiting.  Then it happened.  With life slipping away from him, a single tear flowed out of the corner of dad’s right eye and rolled down the side of his face.  And then, in a few short moments, he was gone. 

Only later, as I relived that moment as grieving people do, did I realize what I had seen.  I saw my father’s last tear.  He’s not shed one since and he never will again.  His last night of weeping is over and the dawn of eternal joy has come. 

Many wise and loving people prepared me for life, but none of them prepared me for how many tears life brings: the agony of a tough decision, doing your best and realizing that it’s not enough, investing your life in people who, one day, just walk away, the weariness of fighting battles that won’t end, the sting of death.  Sometimes there are just too many tears. 

But those tears don’t wash away my hope or my joy, because I know the end of the story.  I know that I will shed a last tear.  At the end of my story, after I’ve trusted Him through every night of weeping, the morning will come, God’s great morning will come and He will wipe them all away.  And we will know that it was worth it all.