CHAPTER 19: “CIGARETTES AND ALL”

FOUR YEARS EARLIER, when I was eleven, I had begged and begged Ma to send me to Arvada Christian School, the small, private school Yankee and his crew were launching. I’d desperately wanted to be one of the original nineteen students when it first opened —not nineteen in my class, but nineteen in the entire school!

I begged Ma to send me to ACS. But Ma’s raw, unvarnished answer was “There’s no way in hell that I can afford to send you to a Christian school! We barely have enough money for food! I’m behind on my bills, and there’s no way I’m taking government assistance!”

Down deep inside I knew it was true. She couldn’t afford it. We couldn’t afford it. Standing there, my mind drifted back to a few years earlier in our old dingy apartment in North Denver. Ma was so desperate for cash that one day she reluctantly walked into my room and, with her head low, said, “Greg, I have to ask you for a favor.”

“What is it, Ma?” I asked.

“We’re out of money for groceries, and I was wondering if I could borrow your fifty dollars’ worth of pennies so that we can eat this week.”

Over the years I had collected those pennies and stored them in a large glass jar that I kept in my closet. I collected them from sidewalks, from between couch cushions, and even from sewer grates. Every time I dropped my newly found pennies into that jar and watched it slowly fill to the top, I felt rich. Every time I heard the clink of them landing on the other pennies, I felt hope. To be honest, I didn’t want to give them to her. I had worked hard to collect every last one of those pennies. But I knew that she felt bad for asking me, so I said, “Okay, Ma.”

“I’ll pay you back —I promise,” she said.

Well, days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months. Every once in a while I’d ask, “Ma, are you gonna pay me back for those pennies?”

And she would say, “Yes. Trust me, I will. Just give me a little more time to get back on my feet.”

I trusted her. I knew she’d pay me back eventually.

And now two years later, here was my chance to get paid back.

When Ma told me she couldn’t afford to send me to Yankee’s Christian school, I said, “Ma, remember that fifty dollars’ worth of pennies you borrowed from me a few years back?”

She bowed her head once again and said, “Yes.”

I said, “If you send me to that Christian school, you don’t have to pay me back.”

I’ll never forget the determination in her eyes when she looked up at me. She said, “I’ll send you to the Christian school.”

Of course, it wasn’t just my innocent bargaining chip that motivated her. She sensed I needed something more, something deeper. She knew I was still searching for my purpose, for my calling. And she hoped that Yankee’s Christian school would help me figure out a direction for my life. So although she was not a Christian herself, she was bound and determined to help me become the best Christian I could be and to, hopefully, find my purpose in the process.

Although she thought herself unworthy of God’s grace, she took a special pride in helping me thrive in my own faith. It wasn’t quite penance for the sins of her past, but I sometimes wondered whether me going to a Christian school soothed her inflamed conscience, like aloe vera on a sunburn.

Over the four years I’d been at Arvada Christian, I was thriving in a way I never had in public school. At my old school, I’d been a scared, bullied kid. Now I was gaining in boldness and confidence. I’d been an average student in public school, but now my grades were all As. And after Timo’s “Bound for Hell” assignment at the mall a few months back, a purpose was taking shape in the center of my soul, and that purpose was helping to bring positive change to every aspect of my life.

Ma saw the difference Arvada Christian was making in my life and was propelled to sacrifice for me and my future in order to pay the tuition. Ma worked double shifts. She held garage sales. She put some of her things up for cash at the nearby pawn shop when necessary.

Ever since I’d transferred schools, Ma had been hearing the gospel more and more often. Yankee would give the gospel at every school function. But she wasn’t interested —not because she hated God, but because she was convinced God hated her for all her transgressions.

And since she was convinced that she was on a highway to hell, she chose to have a bit of fun from time to time by shocking the insular Christian school community with her bold, blunt, and brazen behavior.

The snarkier and more uptight my suburban classmates’ parents were, the more she would try to unwind them. She loved making them cringe by seasoning her sentences with curse words like salt on a steak.

Most were patient. Some were offended. A few were aghast. Nobody was more shocked than Mrs. Carlson (not her real name). She was Colorado Bible Church’s and Arvada Christian School’s very own pointy-fingered, furrow-browed, hyperlegalistic church lady.

For the most part, I was able to keep my ma away from her at school functions. But sometimes that was impossible because her son and I were friends. Once when I asked my ma to drop me off at Mrs. Carlson’s house, I sensed there might be trouble, so I asked her to stay in the car. But she insisted on walking me to the door.

“No,” Ma said. “I want to see what time I’m supposed to pick you up.” To my relief, she at least chose to put her cigarette out in the car’s built-in ashtray, rather than puffing it all the way to the “God Bless All Who Enter Here”-signed door.

“Ma, don’t say anything mean to Mrs. Carlson if she answers the door,” I pleaded as we walked up the narrow sidewalk toward her house.

“I won’t if she doesn’t. I will if she does,” Ma said, reminding me that she wouldn’t take any guff from anyone, at any time, for any reason.

Mrs. Carlson opened the door with a half-crooked smile that quickly morphed into a frown as she peered more closely at my ma.

“Well, Shirley, you got your hair cut short. That’s . . . interesting.”

“Do you like it?” Ma asked, not getting the not-so-sanctified sarcasm. Ma leaned her head to the side and touched her hair the way a model would.

“No, I actually don’t like it. I don’t like it at all,” Mrs. Carlson said, practically snarling.

My heart rate quickened because this was going bad quickly.

“Why the hell not?” Ma asked, her attempted suburban demeanor quickly morphing back to North Denver street tough.

“Because it’s a sin for a woman to have short hair according to the Bible,” Mrs. Carlson huffed.

“Why is it a sin?” Ma asked, part angry and part wondering.

“It’s a sin because you look like a man,” Mrs. Carlson said.

That was like throwing down an insult before a street fight. But instead of punching this lightweight in the throat with her fist, Ma knocked her out with words. Ma looked her up and down, leaned in, and said, “Honey, you could shave off all my hair, hang me upside down, and paint me green, and I’d still look more like a woman than you ever will.”

With that she wheeled around and strutted back to her newly purchased but extremely used 1969 pearly white Chevrolet Impala. Mrs. Carlson almost passed out on the spot.

Needless to say, it was an awkward and quiet walk to my friend’s room. But on the bright side, Ma was learning to use her words and not just her fists.

Still, even after four years of rubbing shoulders with other Christian parents, hearing the gospel at every school function, and listening to me subtly apply some of what I was learning about evangelism on her, Ma was no closer to coming to Christ. Being around more Christians probably made her feel more guilty. And being around judgmental Christians like Mrs. Carlson likely reinforced Ma’s misperception that the gospel was about cleaning up your behavior to earn God’s love. She knew she could never be good enough to earn her way into heaven. She saw herself as a sinner beyond redemption.

So after years of trying to be subtle about sharing Jesus with her, I became convinced that a new approach was necessary. Instead of beating around the bush or waiting until she was in the right mood, I was going to just do it the Mathias way —a straightforward gospel punch to the face.

On the chosen day for the big conversation, I waited nervously for Ma’s return home from work. I paced back and forth in my basement room, praying for boldness and just the right words to say.

When I heard her come through the door upstairs, I could tell from the distinctive creaks in the floor above me that she had plopped down at the kitchen table, most likely to smoke a few after a long, hard day.

I knew I was prayed up and ready. It was time. I marched upstairs and into the kitchen with a boldness that surprised her and said, “Ma, I need to talk to you about something super important.”

“What is it? Your grades? Did ya knock a girl up? Did ya kill somebody? What?” she asked with a teasing smile.

“No, Ma. I’m totally serious right now, so I need you to pay attention.” I spoke with a seriousness she wasn’t used to seeing —not since the day I’d grilled her about George Stier and had learned about Toney.

“Okay, I’m listening, Greg. What is it?”

I barreled ahead before I lost my nerve. “I don’t want you to go to hell. Doug doesn’t want you to go to hell. Grandma doesn’t want you to go to hell. I’m sick and tired of you saying that you’re too sinful or that I don’t know the things you’ve done wrong. It doesn’t matter, Ma. The Bible says, ‘Today is the day of salvation.’ Now is the time to believe!”

She paused for a moment, studying the seriousness of my face and the fierce focus of my eyes. Then she said, “Okay, Greg, explain it to me one more time, and I’ll listen. I’ll really listen.”

So I sat down, leaned in, and said, “Ma, God loves you. He really, really loves you. He made you to be in fellowship with him. That’s how he feels about all of humanity. John 3:16 starts with the words, ‘For God so loved the world . . .’”

I could tell she was locked in, so I continued. “But the sins we commit separate us from him.” I put my hand up in a halt gesture to stop her before she could tell me one more time how much of a sinner she was. “And it doesn’t matter how big or small those sins are. If you sin once, you’re out, which means we’re all out!”

“Out of what?” Ma interrupted.

“We’re out of relationship with him. We’re out of luck. We’re out of options. Because our sins cannot be removed by good deeds. Our good deeds just cover over our sin, like frosting on a burnt cake.”

“I’ve burned plenty of cakes,” Ma said with a smile.

I continued. “So, God sent his only Son, Jesus, into the world to live the perfect life we could never live and die in our place for our sins on the cross.”

“But what about the really bad ones?” Ma asked, leaning in even farther.

“Every sin is really bad to God, and Jesus died in our place for all our sins on the cross. That’s why some of his last words on the cross were ‘It is finished,’ because the price of our sin had been paid in full.”

The term “paid in full” struck her. The payment for her sins wasn’t on layaway. And her sins weren’t up to her to pay anyway. Her guilt, her constant verbal self-flagellation, her working double shifts to send me to a Christian school, her late-night tears —none of it could wipe her sins or her shame away. Only Jesus could.

The light began to dawn.

I quoted the rest of the verse that I had started with. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Ma asked with the utmost sincerity.

I laughed as I remembered that Ma —who had never finished high school —didn’t speak King Jimmy. “It means that if you believe Jesus died in your place on the cross and rose again, and you trust in him alone to save you, then all your sins are forgiven, and he gives you the gift of eternal life.”

Ma had one more question. “You mean to tell me that all that I have to do is to believe that Jesus died for all my sins, and bada boom, all my sins are forgiven just like that?” She snapped her fingers.

“Yeah, Ma, that’s what the Bible says.”

She leaned back, took a long drag on her cigarette, blew the smoke out sideways from her mouth, looked at me, and said, “Okay, I’m in.”

And when my ma said she was in, she was in.

Right then I prayed with her, and I could sense her praying too. For the first time, she was talking to the one who loved her so much. For the first time, she was experiencing the unconditional love she had longed for all these years. For the first time, she realized that even a “bum” like her could be forgiven.

One of the things I learned at school was to always “quiz” someone after they’ve trusted in Jesus to make sure they’ve understood the message.

“So, Ma, where are you going to go when you die?” I asked.

“I’m going to heaven, cigarettes and all,” she answered. We both laughed.

“Heaven’s non-smoking, Ma,” I cracked back. “But seriously, why are you going to heaven?”

She said, “Because Jesus died for all my sins, even the really bad ones.”

Ma had crossed from death to life. And God had used me to reach her —me, her almost aborted son. I, the weak one in my family, had just been used by God to lead the strongest person I had ever met to Christ. This was a different kind of power than the pec-stretching, bench-pressing, bicep-flexing power of my uncles. This was divine power, resurrection power, power that turned sinners into saints, losers into loved ones, and bums into believers.

I lay in bed that night and reflected on the amazing events of the day. If Ma can trust in Christ, then anyone can trust in Christ.

I was so happy!

But my excitement was cut short. The grim reaper who had knocked so often at my door was about to kick in the door and snatch someone very close to me.