Sitting in the Tension

There’s a built-in bookshelf that I’ve been meaning to organize and clean out for some time now.  It has a lot of Justin’s belongings on it, books and binders and old trophies, and while I haven’t been purposefully putting it off, I haven’t gotten around to it. This past weekend I decided since I wasn’t super busy I would get started and it’s proving to be a bit more time consuming than I expected. I keep getting distracted by memories.

The first shelf I tackled was full of children’s books. Now that I don’t have younger kids at home I don’t really need all the Nancy Drew and Bobbsie Twin books anymore, so I boxed those up. Behind them were some keepsakes, old pictures and what not, and also a punch bowl (??). I was making pretty good time and feeling accomplished with my efforts, but then I started on the second shelf and that’s when the distraction began.

If you knew Justin very well, you know he was a life-long student. He loved to learn. He loved history, especially American history, and he loved any books that would increase his knowledge on the subject. It was a bit of a running joke in our house, and even with some of the kid’s friends, that you absolutely did not bring up anything history related unless you wanted to spend the next hour discussing it at great length with Dad. He could never understand how history could be viewed as boring~ there was just so much wisdom to be gleaned from the past and he made it his mission to help all of us understand this fact.

As much as Justin loved learning about history, it didn’t come close to his love of scripture. He thoroughly enjoyed studying God’s Word so it came as no shock to me that along with tons of history books, the second shelf was full of books discussing the Word of God. Commentaries and books on theology and apologetics. Books written by friends that mentored him and books written hundreds of years ago. Books on a variety of subjects from authentic manhood to being a Godly husband. Then there were the Bibles. Bibles in different translations and paraphrases. Greek/English Bibles and an Archaeological Bible. Study Bibles and New Testament only Bibles. Big Bibles and tiny Bibles. Family member’s Bibles and his high school Bible. I seriously could have opened a Bible bookstore with the amount of Bibles this man had. 

As I was taking each Bible down and flipping through them, I came across several things he had stuck inside their pages. I found old business cards from when he was on staff at a church and also a para-church organization we worked at for several years. I found 3×5 cards on which he’d written notes to use while speaking at various events. I found pictures of him as a youth pastor leading a group of kids on a mission trip to Toronto. And then I found a printed out email from a lady we’d gone to church with years ago. It was a thank you note of sorts where she expressed her gratitude to Justin for a class he was leading on Biblical Worldview and what it had meant in her husband’s life. At the end she said, ”God is using you to make a very big impact on [this person’s] life and it makes me smile to see Him at work.” Reading this caused me to turn and look at the top shelf of the bookcase, the shelf that housed all of the studies Justin led over the years. I thought of all the early morning classes he taught, all the late night studying, and all the time spent hoping to spark in the hearts of others an interest in God’s Word. I thought of the hours spent with our kids teaching them the truths of scripture and the desire he had for them to know Jesus. I knew my husband well. I know all the doubts he had that he was making a difference in this world. I know all the second guessing he did of himself. I know all the regrets he had. I know that’s why I found this printed out email inside of his Bible. I know he must have read it a hundred times, trying to get it to sink in that God might actually be using Him. And I know that despite all those doubts and second guessings, despite mistakes and regrets, the legacy he left, by God’s grace, is one dripping with love for the Word of God. 

I carefully laid out all of his Bibles on the hope chest in my room and while most of the kids were over for dinner I invited them to come select one to keep for themselves. As they picked them out I was overwhelmed with the thought of something I heard a while back: “Our prayers will be on the altar long after we’re gone.” Justin prayed continuously for his kids, for them to grow in love and in the knowledge of their savior, and those prayers are still laying before the throne of the Father. They’re still being heard. 

I miss this man who loved God’s Word and who loved me and our kids so well. I miss the deep discussions we would have. I miss the excitement with which he would speak about the things he was learning. It makes me absolutely light up inside to think about all he’s getting to experience right now as he is in the presence of the very one he spent so much time studying about. And how he now fully knows the impact he made on others. Not because he lived perfectly, but because he had a perfect God who took his efforts and turned them into influence. May I rest in the knowledge that He’ll do the same for me.

Sitting in the tension of trusting God with our legacies.