BY DAVID MCGREW
One day, decades ago, I heard a knock on the door. It came so late it was unexpected but I got up and opened it out of curiosity.
It my astonishment, outside on my shabby and worn front porch, leading into the messy and thrown together living room common to the seventies and 20 year old’s barely making it through life, stood Jesus…seemingly oblivious to where He was or whom He was talking to; except that He seemed enormously happy to be there, with that one little suitcase in His hand.
Not knowing what to say, as He stood smiling, I eventually muttered “Please come in.”
So, with suitcase in hand, He walks on in, looking for all the world like He’s called ahead and is prepared to stay. No one was more surprised than I. Not the least of which, over that one little suitcase. It seemed…out of place.
As we sit and make small talk, He opens the case and says “ I want you to look at this.” It’s a Bible. It’s the only thing in it.
Probably unbeknownst to Him, I think, I’ve just coincidentally had some kind of spiritual experience that for some reason makes this idea unexpectedly attractive. So, I pick it up and for the first time in my life, the words pour off the pages like music notes and sing a harmony to my soul. It was like water to the desert of my heart. That was REALLY unexpected. (I think, I should do this regularly. I might even learn how to play a chord or two someday.)
Well, a day’s visit turns into a week’s stay. I think he’s staying on now cause He Reallllyyy seems to like Jeanne and is way more than passingly kind to our infant daughter. He seems to have made and is making Himself home. I dont know what to think cause His appearance has changed everything and everyone in my life, but I know it’s good. But I don’t know how long this can go on. I’m sure I need to be somewhere else…eventually.
In just a short matter of time though, He’s opened His case and taken out more books. He asks me to look at them and tell him what I think. Well, the bible was so good I say “sure”. Again He’s proven right. They were really good books and we had good talks. You would’ve hardly known He knew more than me but as gentle as He was, that did eventually come clear.
While I was busy reading, He said “I’ve got some other friends in town I’d like you to meet. Can they come over?” Of course I agreed but I couldn’t help notice how he seemed to be taking over. I caught him looking at my wall feature particle board on cinder block bookcase. When he knew he had my attention He said, “You mind throwing this away so I can have some room here?” Well, I wasn’t too particularly attached to any of it- fact is, I wasn’t too particularly attached, though I wasn’t aware of it, to much of anything in those days,so I said again “sure”. His friends came over. We went to their house. He seemed to actually know a lot more people than I had ever imagined.
He never did go home. Or, at least He never took His stuff and left. I don’t honestly know what He did. Every night, I went to bed He was still up. Every rising, He was there as if patiently waiting on me. I’vs no idea what He does when I’m not looking. I’ve often thought in these years, “ I wonder who He thinks I am, cause He’s certainly got to have better friends than me” -but to this day, regardless of when I awake or how I come out of that room, He’s sitting there looking at me with that same wide eyed expression of joy He met me on the porch with those decades ago. I’ve given up on the unreasonable fear that one day He’d see through me and say “Hey! I thought you were someone else. I’m leaving.”
Whew. As I look around me now, I no longer recognise my home- I don’t say house as I’ve had many houses in many different locations since then, I say home intentionally. ( yes, in case you’re wondering, He did follow me from house to house…more than once, he even suggested and encouraged some of those moves. In truth, when I tried to slip off elsewhere assuming He might stay behind, when I got up the next day, He’d followed and found me wherever on the planet I had escaped to. At times He’s been more committed to being my friend than I was His.)
My home now; as I look around, somewhere wall by wall, floor-space foot by foot, paint colour, paintings, pictures, maps, books and cases, furniture- the refrigerator (and what was in it) has all changed. But I don’t know how or when.
Seemingly, one thing at a time as I remember back, He’d look around and say “I need a little more room.” Opening that same little suitcase, He’d say “Do you mind If we take that down so I can hang this in our house?, you don’t have to if you don’t want to of course.”
Sometimes I had to think about it a while. I was always worried about what my friends might say but after a while, His friends became my friends and my friends who didn’t like Him actually stopped liking me and quit coming around.
I don’t know how He got all that stuff out of that one little suitcase. For that matter, I don’t know what He did with all the things we took down from the walls, out of the refrigerator or off of the bookcase. I didn’t do much with any of it after that.
As I sit and look around, my bookcase has become massive and massively filled with all sorts of books I had never known to have been printed. These days, He and I read a lot. We sit with a book, of some kind, on one of our laps and one reads aloud to the other. He makes comments, I ask questions. Well, sometimes I make comments but He usually just gets another book out to read an excerpt from.
I can’t really explain how I got here. I’m not even sure of where I’m at. I just know I like it a lot.
Looking back, I can’t imagine what my life would’ve been had I not invited Him and His little suitcase into that little house that was still learning to become a home. I can’t imagine ( beyond where all that stuff came from!) what would’ve become of me, and my home, had I said ‘No- you’re taking over. Can you just put that back. I like my own stuff.’
What I especially marvel at is how He knew just what and when to ask me to replace. The extraordinary patience He exercised to wait and see for myself that I really did like His things better.
And all out of that little, and rather worn, suitcase.