The Game that Leads toward Home!
It was a Sunday afternoon in January 2000. I sat at Jim’s bedside at the care facility, a football field’s length away from our house. It was just the two of us; the family had returned to the house for some afternoon respite.
We had an NFL playoff game on the TV, but we were more focused on another game being played. Cribbage is a wonderful game as it often fosters warm conversation and community amidst hands of cards that move pegs on their journey toward the home position.
On that day, the two participants were a Christian man in his mid-sixties with terminal cancer, and his thirty-four year old son-in-law. The conversation centered on going HOME.
Jim was satisfied with his journey along the board of life that the LORD had him on. It led his pegs from an east coast life of family, career, and faith to a midwestern retirement of a country gentleman. Then the call came that took him to the Pacific island of Guam for a short six-month missionary adventure. Jim would use his gifts as an accountant and auditor to help a Christian broadcasting ministry.
On Christmas day, four months into his “call,” Jim fell ill, and the journey abruptly took him from Guam to Hawaii to John’s Hopkins to a hospice bed in Honey Brook, Pennsylvania. The only thing of concern for him was Betty’s care once he reached HOME. It is interesting how many think of hospice and death as an end; Jim knew he was approaching a BEGINNING!
I don’t remember who won at cribbage that day, but Jim’s faith, hope, and satisfaction started me on a journey that day. He arrived HOME a month later, and in fourteen months, I would discern a call that would catapult me (us) from the comfort of Honey Brook (big house, inground pool, Amish country, and successful career) to a vocation of service to the LORD and his people that would lead to Iowa, Illinois, western Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and…
I’m still playing cribbage to this day. When I get together with family, be it in a hotel lobby or a kitchen table, a cribbage board and deck of cards magically appears. We are always moving toward HOME!
REFLECTION: Can you remember a turning point in your life of faith? Beside the LORD, who took part in that pivot? If they are still around, reach out them and tell them how the Lord used them to change your life.
“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” Matthew 18:20
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