A Sweet Reminder

I’m not sure why I made this suggestion, but I sent a text to both daughters that year to “stay alert because this is Grandpa’s birthday and he may have a word for us.”

We thought my dad would live forever. He never slowed down. He worked on his parents’ family farm in South Georgia as a youth, was a pastor for 60 years, became a semi-retired minister and took up furniture refinishing. He said he felt his ministry continued because people came to his shop to bring their furniture along with their troubles. He listened and ministered from his carpentry shop.

He and my mother purchased their first home in their sixties because churches back in their day had provided a parsonage for the pastor and his family. Their home in Americus, Georgia, was built in 1876 and had all the features they needed—a large front porch, a shop for “Frank’s Finishing Touch,” and two upstairs apartments they rented out and the income helped pay off the mortgage. Daddy took on the task of renovating the kitchen with the help of his carpenter friends. There was always something to fix with a house that age. He even crawled under the house to do some plumbing.

On the evening of April 1, 2008, I got a call from a dear friend, a nurse in their church, and she handed the phone to Mother after telling me she had some hard news. Daddy had been taken to the hospital that morning with lingering flu symptoms. It happened to be the first day the new hospital was open. A tornado the year before had destroyed their old hospital. Daddy was the second patient to be admitted. That evening he experienced a massive heart attack and died.

We brought Mother to Topeka to live at a retirement home she loved until she passed away two years later. Now, my three brothers and I were left with the huge responsibility of selling their home. It was still empty after three years. We had set July as the deadline for finding a buyer for the home. We were on our third realtor by now.

Daddy loved to tell this story about his playmates as a child. They lived down the road in a house with no plumbing and lots of children. They worked hard in the fields with their father, but they also had fun with my dad and his four brothers and sisters. In the nineties, one of these childhood playmates invited him and his siblings to their annual family reunion. The reunion was held at a church and the family came dressed up for what was a very special family event. After eating, they went to the church auditorium and, as my dad described it, their reunion was an expression of praise for what God had done in their lives. Daddy’s favorite song was entitled “Hold On.” Daddy recalled part of the spiritual—“I promised the Lord I would ‘just hold on.’” He loved the way the family “held on” to the lyrics and repeated them over and over.

That day, my dad’s birthday, March 7, Rebecca said she wanted to treat me to a concert by the Topeka Festival Singers. I was delighted to accept. Unaware of the name of the concert or what was to be sung, we sat down with our programs in hand. We both looked at the program cover and saw these words:

Hold On!

Yes! We had our word from my dad!

The concert was a celebration of Black History Month with a concert of African- American spirituals. That song was on the program.

The Apostle John spoke those words, words that Jesus gave him for the churches in Revelation, when he said, “hold on to what you have until I come . . . endure patiently.”

For the short term, we took heart about the sale of the home. We “held on” until July. The realtor called the first of the month with a couple ready to buy. However, a week later he called and said they decided not to move to Americus. Later in July, the realtor called again and this time he had a wonderful couple who were eager to buy. They had looked at the house two years before, but now the price was right.

The Apostle Paul writes a great chapter about the Holy Spirit—I Corinthians 2. He says that no one knows what God has prepared for those who love him. “But God has revealed it unto us by His Spirit.”

He goes on further: “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.”
God knows how to get through to us in ways we can’t even imagine. His creativity is limitless.

Written in memory of

Rev. J. Frank Kirkland

March 7, 1926 – April 1, 2008