I sat on the cream-colored sofa and slowly slid my 8-year old body to the edge. Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite played in the background as the crackling fire masked the sound of my internal excitement. It was an ice-covered, Oklahoma Christmas morning, and we had opened all the usual presents. The things we needed—socks and shoestrings and hair clips. Our favorite junk foods—bugles and corn nuts and lemonheads. And random foods we couldn’t get enough of—black olives and sweet pickles and chicken-in-a-biscuit crackers.
I kept a calm resolve, but my insides were wired as I watched my brother open his last Christmas present, the big finale. And he unwrapped a television. His very own television. A whopping 13-inch, color television. I was blown away. My big present this year is going to be amazing!
“There’s one present le…” my mom couldn’t even finish her sentence before I dashed off, faster than Santa’s reindeer.
Ripping the candy cane wrapping paper off the large box, I paused and stared inside at a tiny card. Utter disappointment filled my heart. KC got a television! And I have a card?! I looked up at my parents with a weak smile. At 8, I was pretty confident of my poker-face capabilities, but thinking back, I’m not too sure I had that skillset. Yet.
“A card” I stated. “Well, open it” my dad replied.
With a sigh, I slid my finger under the edge and pulled out an index card. A riddle? I followed it’s directions and ran to the kitchen to discover another wrapped card. And another riddle. On to my bedroom. Then the laundry room. And finally to the bathroom where I whipped open the shower curtain to find my pinnacle Christmas present. A brand new, shiny, neon-green scooter.
So much better than KC’s television! I grabbed it and tore out of the bathroom hollering my love and gratitude in a squeaky pitch. Within seconds, I was zipping and zooming up and down the ice-covered street in front of our house. My heart singing “Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day, I’ve got a wonderful feeling, everything’s going my way.”
As you sit in the darkness
let your tears stream down your face
let your anger burst forth and release it
and
cling to the glimmer
cling to the glimmer of light
for it is your hope
As you wait in the darkness
let time pass by
grieve for how your life will be different now
and
cling to the glimmer
cling to the glimmer of light
for it is your hope
As you stand in the darkness
stand in the midst of your pain
you will find a strength you never knew you had
so
cling to the glimmer
cling to the glimmer of light
for it is your hope
As you sit,
as you wait,
as you stand,
this glimmer of light will become wider and brighter
and in time it will engulf your darkness and the light will fully shine over you again
but until then
cling to the glimmer
cling to the glimmer of light
for it is your hope
“…at his last stop everybody gets off before he drives the bus over the bridge [back into the city] where the bus is parked overnight.
As he’s pulling the bus up to the last stop, he tells the people on the bus to give him their problems. He tells them he knows that life is difficult and many of them are taking home from a day of work all kinds of burdens and anxiety and conflict – so why not leave all that with him so they don’t take it home to the people they love the most?
He tells them that he’ll take their burdens and drive them across the bridge so that they don’t have to carry them around anymore” (footnote #1).
My grandpa (poppa) was a hard-working and dedicated man who loved well. He worked as a pastor all of his life. And for many years he also drove a bus. He woke up and started his morning by transporting people around the city. I never knew much of this work as he preferred the earliest shift so he could be home and available for his kids and grandkids and the church family. He collected buses, but I never asked why he had such an interest in, what seemed to me, an insignificant thing. I mean, what could possibly make a bus so special?
Then I read this story.
And it could have been written about my poppa. Because that’s the kind of man he was.
—
FOOTNOTE: #1 – The Bus Route Story is from Rob Bell’s latest book “How To Be Here” —
Angel K Will 