Show Up!

The sermon was the regular length for a sermon, however, I can only remember two words of it, "Show up." I think these two words spoke so loudly to me because of an illustration that preacher didn't verbalize.

I didn't have my brain surgery in my home town, so in order to come to the hospital to see me it meant a two hour drive. The day after my surgery, Tom May, my pastor, showed up. I confess I was pretty sick and unable to communicate. But the fact that he had taken the time to show up at the hospital communicated to me that he cared. I felt valued.

My great aunt came to my high school graduation. She didn't speak to me before or after the ceremony. You might wonder how I knew that she showed up. Well, I'll tell you. Aunt Sit always wore a hat. In fact, I think she always wore the same hat because as I sit here writing this I can see it in my mind's eye. I remember that when I walked into the auditorium and saw my great Aunt Sit's hat, the only person wearing a hat in the auditorium, I felt honored. I felt like I had value. My Aunt Sit cared enough to show up.

Now I know without a doubt that I have opened up a wound for some who are reading this. I have awakened the memory or when you were alone in the hospital and no one showed up. I have touched a memory from your childhood when your eyes searched for a familiar face in the audience but found none. The memory is a wound. In time the wound becomes a scar, a hard place in your heart where life cannot flow.

I understand. I have those wounds too. But what I have found is that I can take them to the God who did show up. I can stand in His presence with my wounded heart exposed and I ask Him to touch those hard, cold, lifeless places. He not only heals the hurt but He also redeems the pain by giving me the assignment to relay to others that they have value and that I care enough to show up.