February 2013
Cool Beans, Marietta, Georgia
Bill was the first man I ever loved. He was a tall, blond sixteen-year-old. I was three. He was shy and quiet, but he always talked to me. And he listened because I was then, as I am now, a talker. He loved sitting beside me at dinner. He never missed a family party. He gave me a plastic camera for my third birthday — the flash was a small, multicolored cube on the corner of the camera that turned when you pushed the button. I was sure he was the coolest person who had ever existed on earth.
Bill was my dad’s little brother in the Big Brother/Little Brother program through the Boys and Girls Club in our town. I have so many clear memories of Bill. Dad would pick him up and bring him to our house a few times a month, and he would hang out for the day or stay for the weekend. I remember one summer night when he stayed with us. Dad had grilled out, and Bill had just finished showering. It was time to eat, and my mom asked me to holler up the stairs to Bill. He leaned over the banister to say he was almost ready, and I recall being shocked that he didn’t have a shirt on. We were a house full of modest girls and a modest dad — shirts were worn at all times. (Childhood memories are the weirdest, right?) I met his girlfriend, rode in my dad’s car with him, and played cards with him.
I’m telling you, I can still see his face clearly in my mind’s eye even thirty years later.
I remember where he was sitting on the couch when I opened that birthday gift, and I can still see his face as he smiled and laughed when I took his picture with my plastic camera with the click-and-turn flash. There was no film in the toy, but he never let on that he knew that.
Dad knew Bill for a long time, having been partnered with him since the kid was eight years old. But for being the first man I ever loved, I did not get enough time with him. Around Christmas in 1983, Bill was killed in a car accident. We returned home from a Christmas family event with my mother’s family in Macon, Georgia, and my dad’s father was waiting for us in the driveway. I can still see Grandpa Jack through the windshield, standing by his car, waiting to break the news to my dad.
We went in the house, and my mom, sister, and I sat on one couch; my dad sat on the other. Mom pushed us out of her lap and told us to go hug our dad. I felt afraid, but simply because everything felt wrong. I don’t know what my dad said to us, but I remember knowing, somehow, even in my little girl head, that Bill was gone forever. This boy I saw as a part of my family would never be in our house again. And my dad was very, very sad.
Dad taught me a lesson with Bill, in his life and in his death, that he has continued to teach me over and over for my entire life: be brave enough to love the people around you, even if it looks like sacrifice and feels like loss.
When my sister would talk about going to the mission field internationally, my dad would always say, “People in our own town still need Jesus, you know. Why don’t you just stay here?”
Actually, he’d also say, “Why don’t you be a missionary to Acworth?” because Acworth is a tiny town about thirty minutes from my parents’ house that my father apparently believes is full of heathens.
Dad’s funny like that. But actually? He lives that too — the belief that you should be concerned for the people around you. Dad has always made a point to go out of his way to care about the people in our community, whether or not it made him look good.
One of my dad’s best childhood friends raised three boys virtually alone. My dad would take the boys out to eat or take us over to hang out with them and play on the playground every so often. Dad has done accounting work for families, even when they couldn’t afford the help or weren’t able to pay him (though we did get some fresh garden produce a time or two as payment). Dad met with a friend of mine a few weeks ago because she lost her job and didn’t know what to do about her lack of income. (Did I mention my dad is supersmart and everyone wants his advice? Well, that.)
Dad serves our local community with his time, money, and advice. It would be easier to just worry about our family. Trust me, we give him plenty to worry about. Instead, he cares for lots of families and does whatever he can to help them. It would be easier to just worry about his own company, but he chooses to care about others and their livelihood.
Marietta, Georgia, is better because Tom Downs lives there.
The world needs to hear about Jesus. The world needs to see your courage in action. But you live in your town for a reason.
What is it?
Why are you there?
Why is here your spot on the map?
Why have you chosen that town, of all the towns in the world, to be your home?
Maybe you didn’t pick it. Maybe it picked you. But you are there. When we think about the puzzle of the person you are, the zip code on your mailing address is an important piece.
I’ve never been moved by a book like I was moved by Christy by Catherine Marshall. I first read it as a middle schooler. In case you haven’t read it, please put down this book and immediately pick up Christy. (Kidding. Don’t.) The book is a fictional retelling of the real life of Catherine Marshall’s mother, Leonora Whitaker, who was a schoolteacher in the rural Appalachian mountains of East Tennessee in the early 1900s.
(Trust me, the parallel between Christy Huddleston, my favorite book character ever, and my own life — schoolteachers moving to Tennessee alone without family — is not lost on me. In fact, I probably purposefully find comparisons that aren’t as obvious — “Oh, my . . . , Christy and I both wear dresses and both like boys and both know how to read. WE ARE THE SAME PERSON.” Don’t we all do that with our heroes?)
I devoured that book and then started over and did it again. I knew it backward and forward — the characters, the mountain passes, the dramatic twists. I was a superfan. My eighth-grade spring break was spent with my mom and grandmother and best friend touring the filming locations for the Christy television show. I have a dream to attend ChristyFest, a yearly convention in Townsend, Tennessee, for fans of the show and book.
Are you getting the theme here? I was (am?) obsessed.
I wanted to know her because I felt like I did, even as a little thirteen-year-old. I dreamed of teaching school before I read Christy, but after I read it, I knew beyond any doubt that I wanted to do that for my job. I saw how she served a disadvantaged community in our own country and how education changed the future for each of those students.
It amazed me that she was a missionary in Tennessee. I didn’t know about the Appalachian people and the poverty in that area of the world. As a metro-Atlanta girl, I just could not believe that within driving distance I would come to this same, still struggling community — almost a hundred years after the setting of the book.
My eyes were opened. Growing up in church, I always heard of missionaries in France or Africa or Costa Rica, but I didn’t realize the need was so close to us. As a result, I’ve been on multiple mission trips to the Appalachian area. I read every book I can find on the people group. And when I was deciding where to teach school, I tried to pick locations that served the people of Appalachia.
I met Catherine Marshall’s grandson once. He was dating a friend of mine, and they came to church on a Sunday morning. I couldn’t get any words out through the tears, which I’m sure he really enjoyed, given that he was an eighteen-year-old kid, but I just couldn’t believe I was standing in front of the literal offspring of my hero. I blubbered through some story about how his grandmother’s writing and his great-grandmother’s life had absolutely changed me, but I don’t remember what I said as much as I remember how totally embarrassed I was that I could not even a little bit control my emotions.
And I realized that day that Christy Huddleston was my hero. And my hero never left America. My hero left her family in 1909 and went alone to serve in the hollows of East Tennessee.
Right here. Right in my state. She was brave here.
Are you brave enough to find your place even if your place is right here? As a high school senior, I stood in the middle of the town square in Ciudad Cortes, Costa Rica, and shared the gospel with an interpreter, and yet one of my best friends from high school was not a believer and I didn’t even talk to him about Jesus.
Why does it sometimes take more courage at home? Why am I more willing to sign up for a mission trip to Mexico than to serve the homeless in downtown Nashville?
Being brave at home means serving.
When my small group of college students recently celebrated our one-year anniversary, we decided to serve. Well, that’s not totally true. The girls knew we were doing something special, and since we eat dinner together every Tuesday, they may have thought there would be a special meal or a special guest. Instead, I bamboozled them and only served peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and fruit, and we loaded into two cars and headed downtown. They didn’t know what we were doing, but at this point, after a year together, they trust me enough to know I’m not kidnapping them and yet to never be surprised when I have a cockamamie plan.
We arrived in downtown Nashville and made our way to a large overpass, where many people were gathered under the bridge. A praise and worship band was playing, using one of those sound systems that kinda hurts my ears — like a traveling preacher from the 1980s would use. Homeless people sat in rows and rows of chairs, each with a plate of food on their lap as volunteers wove in and out and helped everyone get settled.
It happens every Tuesday night in our town. The Bridge’s outreach ministry feeds homeless men, women, and children a huge and healthy meal, and then someone shares the gospel. As the people leave, they are able to fill bags with fresh produce donated by local grocery stores.
My small group and I had never gone before, but our church goes once a month on Tuesday nights so we knew it was a respected ministry to be involved with.
The girls were nervous and hovered close to me like chicks to a hen for the first few minutes. But then they just got in line with the other volunteers and started to serve. Carrying food. Helping others find a seat. Passing out fruits, veggies, or huge bags of bread at the end of the night. We were there for a few hours, but the experience stuck with all of us much longer.
It takes courage to serve in new places just down the street from your normal places. I was so proud of my girls — jumping right in and being part of an experience they didn’t know was going to happen.
I didn’t have a place to live when I moved back to Nashville from Scotland. All my belongings were in a storage unit somewhere in West Nashville, and I no longer had an address. It was Thanksgiving, and I planned to find something around Christmas.
Before leaving Nashville the previous summer, I had joked with Luke and Heather about moving in with them when I got back. Sometime in the fall, Luke skyped me and said the joke was an actual offer. I was welcome to stay with them for a couple of weeks while trying to find a place.
I interrupted their life. I added an entire human to their two-human household. I needed a key and a bed and a bathroom and the internet.
Coming home from being overseas for six months, I was worried about reverse culture shock. It’s a real thing, y’all. Being surrounded by a foreign culture, attempting to make it your own, and then coming back home — it can cause a normally sane person to lose it a little bit.
And I’m not normally sane. So. You’ve gotta factor that in too.
But living with Luke and Heather was the most comfortable, warmest, friendliest environment. We decorated the Christmas tree, went to see movies in sweats, and walked to dinner at Edley’s, the new barbecue restaurant in the neighborhood. In fact, another friend, Adam, lived with us as well, so we just became a little family of four for that holiday season.
I think their sacrifice rescued me from the pain of readjusting to Nashville and America. I truly do.
New Year’s Day came, and I still hadn’t found a place to live. Weeks had accidentally turned to months, and it wasn’t until mid-February that I was packing my things and moving to a house just down the street.
Luke and Heather never complained. We talked about it openly and honestly multiple times, but they just kept giving — their space, their time, their money, their hearts.
It’s brave to let a person live in your house who isn’t your family.
It’s brave to serve the less fortunate in your own zip code.
It’s brave to give your life and your comfort so that others can have life.
It’s brave to teach your family the importance of investing in your own community.
The longer I live, the more I think I’m figuring out that courage often looks like sacrifice and service. In the places where you find the most comfort, you have to have a little extra something to give there. Home is where we rest. Home is where we find peace, so to give from there, to sacrifice in that place, is to sacrifice deeply, I think. It’s brave.