Christian Living

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Going to Granny Helen’s house when I was a boy brought shrills of excitement from my brother and I. She lived quite a distance away and we only visited a few times a year. But I remember those times so vividly that I can close my eyes and imagine the fun we had. Granny Helen to this day, though she can as often as before, gets down on the floor to play games and goes outside to play now with her great grandchildren.

When I was a kid, she’d help us strategically set up grand battles with little green plastic army men. I don’t remember how we kept track which men belonged to which army but she helped us keep track of it. We consulted her on the building plans and construction of the Lincoln Log® homes as well.

She taught us games like “Pick up Sticks®,” Dominoes® and others which have become unknown games to most kids today. More than waging war between armies of no distinction and building log houses, with which we became bored before we were finished, I’d say it was the way she read to us that made spending time with Granny Helen the best.

I’m not sure how to describe it. Somehow she could generate peace, keep us still and serene while at the same time keep us captivated throughout the unfolding story. One book that just came to my mind a couple of weeks ago is Two Little Miners*, a Little Golden Book, published in 1943. It was, now famous, Richard Scarry’s first illustrated book. It was published by Mary Reed and written by Margaret Wise Brown and Edith Thacher Hurd. Granny Helen still has it.

I asked to borrow it and the entire family (it was Thanksgiving) threatened me with my life as it was an heirloom (as well as a collectible), which it kind of is I guess.

I can almost hear her voice as I carefully thumb through the pages. On the road going home, my brother’s fiancé read it out loud. I still remembered what happened, not before she read it, but as she did. It wasn’t her voice I heard though. It was Granny Helen’s. The way Granny Helen inflected her voice and generated sound effects jumped out of those stored memories upon each turned page.

Something I didn’t remember though, was the story itself…well, the “moral” or spiritual applications which could be drawn from it. The story tells of two miners who would come home almost pitch black from all the coal they had been mining all day. Dirt covered them from head to toe.

One of them had white hair, an older miner, but it was even black. They’d bathe, scrubbing vigorously, until they were once again clean. The older man’s hair was white once again and they had on clean clothes just in time for dinner.

The next morning, they’d get up and run off to the mine in order to work…their clothes spotless. As they descended down the mine shaft in a bucket, it grew darker and darker until it was pitch black. Only the lamps in their hard hats made anything visible. Without those, they couldn’t see anything. Once again, at the end of the day, they had seen more coal and came up out of the mine pitch black, dirty as they were the day before.

Almost five years ago, I began experiencing the repercussions of some bad choices. A few months later I had lost everything, or at least what I thought “everything” meant at the time. After being hospitalized for some time, months of counseling, a lot of prayer and a miracle of the Lord, I began to see the grace and love of God in my life throughout that time.

I know it was my choice to walk down those wide paths thinking it would satisfy me. I had become angry with God and was determined to mess things up. Well, I had…and done so very well. But, with time and with help from my family and friends, I was back on my feet. I’m not really talking about materially either.

It was regrouping spiritually that was most exciting to me. I sensed the Lord’s nearness and His friendship like no other time in my life. It was like starting over and the joy of my salvation fanned the flames as the fire in my soul burned brightly again.

I spent time with God even treasuring being alone at times, something I’d never done before. I was burdened and spent time on my knees in intercessory prayer for others as the Lord led me. It was obvious that God was answering those prayers in a supernatural way.

I think I even got a little arrogant now that I think about it. I may have let my guard down and not leaned on God to keep me away from getting dirty again. I had begun to financially become independent again. I had a place of my own again. And the worst part, a mind of my own again.

Yes, I had slowly, but surely, moved away from being transformed (Romans 12:1-2) and toward living my way. As I continued on that path, my life began to spiral out of control like before.

Before long, I had to miss some work again, eventually resigning. Being completely dependent on others and literally erasing all the progress I had made wasn’t easy to swallow.

For some reason I fixated on the part where I was back in the same place I was four years earlier, physically, mentally, financially…and spiritually. I was angry. And I thought God must be tired of this because I sure was.

Things have begun to turn around and it was remembering this book…this Little Golden Book…that has urged me to see things in a different light. The miners spent so much time cleaning up after work that you’d think they wouldn’t want to get dirty again. But, they did. The very next day. And at the end of that day, they’d be black as coal and have to start over.

At times, I feel like those miners. I get all cleaned up. Things are going well and then I’d mess things up again. The circumstances and the consequences which followed led me into despair. I actually don’t comprehend His grace at those times which is probably why we call it amazing.

His grace forever washes us of our dirt, our sin. We are no longer compelled to get dirty. When we do, His blood has already paid for our sin. We can let the light of Jesus shine in us to expose those dark places of un-confessed sin and those things we do or think or not do when we know better.

Thankfully, God’s grace is amazing and we can start over. But there’s another phrase that could be used instead of “starting over.” It’s a new beginning, a brand new day and a clean slate. Unfortunately, I’d better return the book I borrowed or I won’t have a clean slate with my family.

*Two Little Miners, a Little Golden Book, copyright, 1949 by Simon and Schuster, Inc., and Artists and Writers Guild, Inc., Rockefeller Center, New York, 20, New York.

© 2004, Jerry D Lane, All Rights Reserved.

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