SMALL MOMENTS LOOMING LARGE

Some moments in life loom large, are unforgettable, and are flashbulb moments.  We treasure them and return to them again and again like playing the video or you tube tape over and over.  They give us joy and bring an easy smile.  Here are four small moments that I savor again and again over the years:

     1)   Aaron’s leap of love - My son is now 31.  When he was about 3 or 4 years old, I was sitting in the living room.  He came at full speed around the corner, dove into my lap, crawled up and wrapped his little arms around my neck, and whispered in my ear “I love you, Daddy!”  O the joy of the moment was real.  It was an unsolicited expression of a little guy’s pure love for his father.  I love revisiting that moment.  It reminds me of how God our Father must feel when we dive into his lap and say to Him “I love you, Abba, Father!”

     2)   Dr. Koop’s Take on Prayer – About the same time as Aaron was 3 years, Irene and I were out to dinner with a dear friend, Dr. C. Everett Koop, the US Surgeon General.   We affectionately knew him as “Chic” (Chic Koop).  Over dinner, Irene asked him an interesting question, “Chic, what is prayer like in your life?”  He paused and said, “At this time in my life, prayer is the Trinity letting me in on the conversation.”  This was the response of a mature Christian whose prayer life was largely listening to God.  I’ve never forgotten the enormous lesson in a short sentence.

     3)   Laughing like my college roommate - When I was a student at Asbury College I roomed with Dick McClain, now the president of The Mission Society.  Dick had a unique laugh.  It was a kind of behavioral signature.  One morning getting ready for class, I laughed out loud at something said and suddenly realized that I had appropriated Dick’s laugh.  I sound just like him. Later in life I heard someone say, “You become like those you hang out with!”  I remembered laughing like my roommate.  It’s a good memory, because I like the idea that the more I “hang out” with Jesus, the more I will be like him.

   

4)   Aaron at the tomb – One of the great decisions in my life was to take both my daughter (Micah) and son (Aaron) to Israel (twice each and separately).  On the second time there with Aaron he was in his mid teens. We were literally exiting the empty garden tomb where it is said Jesus was buried and resurrected.  Aaron put his arm around my shoulder and said to me “It’s all true, isn’t it Dad?”  My heart skipped a beat rejoicing. It was a small moment that loomed large in my heart and still does.

I recently began listing the small moments in my life that loom large.  I receive great joy in revisiting them.  The common thread that ties them together is the grace of God so lavishly poured out in my lifetime.  The joy lies not only in the past remembering these small moments, but God’s gracious provisions of small moments is what I can look for in the present, and look forward to in the future.  Thanks be to God.  I hope to share more small moments that loom large in future blogs.  Stay tuned!