Let Nothing You Dismay

The death of a family member in and around the holiday season may accentuate the sense of loss that families feel. But the death may occur at any time of the year and change our experience of the holiday season. In some ways, we miss our departed loved ones most on these special days.

This year the sense of loss is very personal. It will be my first Christmas without my father who died December 2.

Many of us grew up celebrating Christmas with rich family traditions and wonderful meals together. We cherish vivid memories of father bringing in the Christmas tree and mother preparing the meal. We left milk and cookies on the fireplace Christmas Eve, woke up early, ran to the Christmas tree, and there discovered the gifts that Santa Claus left us overnight.

Christmas is all about the children, and the kids know it—and love it. Parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, turn their attention to creating pure delight one magical morning.

The gifts were unwrapped each Christmas morning at the Crosby house in a storm of flying paper and bows, squeals and shouts. All mysteries were uncovered in 15 minutes, and the rest of the morning was a leisurely float through the package debris sporting new outfits and playing with the coveted gifts that topped the list.

Hence the giant hole that the death of a dear one creates in the family at Christmas. Their chair is vacant, their role unfilled. I will never again see my father at the family Christmas gathering, and the thought of it makes me sad.

I know this is not a loss for which I will find a substitute. I must now adjust my expectations of the holiday season. However, I want my words and deeds to foster peace and faith within the family, and I intend to fiercely protect and preserve for younger family members the surprise, delight and joy of Christmas.

An old man named Simeon is part of the Christmas story though he shows up eight days after the birth of the babe in the stable. He expressed to Mary and Joseph a perspective on death that ought to be considered by every grieving heart at Christmas. Simeon took that tiny infant in his arms and said, “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace” (Luke 2:29).

The benevolent attention of God is a central truth of Christmas. Our Creator watches over us with tender care. He intervenes on our behalf. He intends to do us good, not harm. This perspective makes the comfort and cheer of Christmas possible. Simeon expresses it by addressing God as “Sovereign Lord.”

Simeon’s hands are wrinkled and spotted with age as he holds the infant. He knows that his own death is near. That is fine with him now. He is ready to be dismissed. He has worked like a soldier at his post. He has been faithful and attentive. He has endured the hardships that life inevitably brings. He is at peace with his impending departure.

This reminds me of my father, so full of faith and song, ready to be dismissed, living in the promise. We sang to him as he was dying. For hours we gathered around the bed, mother lying by his side. We sang to Dad because he was the one who taught us to sing, to embrace life as God’s good gift.

“Peace on earth,” the angels sang at the Christmas birth announcement in the fields of Bethlehem. It is not a pipe dream, this peace. It can prevail in the believing heart that embraces the goodness of God even in the process of dying. Simeon was ready be dismissed in peace by the God who announces peace to the world at Christmas and creates that peace day by day and year by year as we learn to trust him in both the wins and the losses, the good times and the bad.

Death at Christmas is like everything else at Christmas. It is bathed in the light of God’s grace and set in the context of his promise. “All is calm, all is bright.”

Sunbeams Down the Path

Our lifelong friends, Mac and Mary McDermott, were killed in an automobile accident near Gatesville, Texas, shortly after they left my father’s funeral. Mary died at the scene, and Mac died yesterday never having regained consciousness. Please keep their family in your prayers as they plan memorial services.

Mary was a young teenager in my father’s first pastorate in central Minnesota. She lived with us during a brief stint in Maryland.

The family met Mac, a soldier stationed at Fort Bliss, when we moved to El Paso. He was a member of the church where Dad was pastor. He helped my father build our home on the outskirts of El Paso from the stones and gravel they found in the arroyos.

My match-making mother invited Mary for an extended stay in El Paso and pushed her up the stairs at a fellowship meeting, insisting that she meet Mac. They fell in love, had a whirlwind romance, and were married for 51 years and had four children.

I saw Mary for the first time in nearly 50 years at the 60th wedding anniversary of my parents last year. Mary is the one who bought me the sailor suit I was photographed wearing as a five-year-old.

I saw Mac and Mary in the crowd as the family exited First Baptist Church of Gatesville after the memorial service for Dad. I stepped up to them, put both my arms around their necks, and hugged them close. I said, “Thank you for loving us when we were little. It made a big difference.”

Think of the ways we touch the little ones. This very Sunday we have 18 children who will be part of the parent/child dedication service. Our foster care ministry will bear fruit for generations on this earth as well as forever in heaven. The Early Learning Center and Bible study, missions, and music programs for the children are some of our most important work. Our efforts to bring Peace on the Playgrounds focus on the needs of children.

We send sunbeams far down the path when we love the little ones.

I Can See My Father Singing

My father, Russell Bryan Crosby, took off on his last adventure the Sunday before Thanksgiving. He and Donna, his bride of 61 years, packed the car and left without telling a soul. “I’m dying,” he told mother. “Let’s see if I can breathe better where it is hot and dry.” They left before 6 a.m. and were nearly to Fort Stockton in far West Texas before anybody knew. Mother was behind the wheel, and Dad was navigating with waves and nods.

They traveled to El Paso, admired a rare rainbow, and stayed with a man who lived in our home as a teenager in trouble. Then they headed north into the mountains on a course that we often traveled when I was a boy. They crossed the high mountain pass at Cloudcroft, N.M., ate some fresh apples from an orchard, and admired the towering peaks draped in snow. After 1,350 miles on the road, they made it back to the family Thanksgiving gathering.

My mother knew it was crazy for them to travel so far when he was so sick. But she told us all how delighted she is that they made that trip, their last fling together.

I was singing with my family around the deathbed of my father just a few days later. Mother was lying beside him holding his hand, and he was breathing but no longer responding.

I leaned over and thanked him for making me sing when I was a boy. Dad insisted that I sing with my brothers, even though I protested loudly, and he taught me how to do it. Song became such a great part of my life.

Singing together as men around the deathbed of our father was such a healing, helpful, joyful, and sorrowful experience.

Dad gathered us boys when we were preteens. He stood the four of us oldest ones in a row with hymnbooks in our hands. He taught us how to sing the harmonies. He did it patiently, persistently, until we got it, learned it, and loved it.

We sang together for ten years, my brothers and I, and it was formative and magical for each of us. We grew in our musical skills beyond Dad’s ability to help, and that was okay with him. We picked up instruments that Dad never learned to play. We wrote songs. Dad pulled us together, focused our energies, and helped us understand the power and beauty of song.

I picture Dad standing behind the pulpit, head thrown back, eyes half closed, singing about Jesus with a passion that no one could miss. His love for the Savior never waned through all those years. Right up the last, he wanted to sing and talk about Jesus.

I hear him calling us together for suppertime with a baritone voice booming through the hall: “Jesus has a table spread where the saints of God are fed. He invites his chosen people come and dine.” We joined him in his song until, through the years, it became a chorus of a hundred voices. It is one of the songs our family sang as friends passed by the coffin in their last tribute to our father.

I do remember my father preaching, of course. He towered above us as children, delivering God’s word in creative and interesting ways with vivid pictures and stories that made the text come to life. He instilled in us a love for God’s Word. We learned it by rote from the time we could talk.

I see him, Bible open in his lap, sitting on a stump in the forest with sunbeams dancing around his perch, getting his Sunday sermon ready. My father meditated deeply on the Scriptures. He always had a thought he was toying with, an intriguing notion, a perplexing puzzle or paradox. I picture Dad, choked with emotion, carefully retelling the story of his text.

I also see my father heaving heavy stones to shoulder height, building our rock house in the desert of El Paso, always accompanied by tiny people under foot.

My earliest memory is a train ride with my parents. I remember standing next to the bench seat on the train with a bag beside me. Some of my fondest memories of my childhood are the trips we took as a family. By the time I was 16 years old I had been in 27 of these United States.

We had several station wagons during my boyhood. The two I remember best are a big red Chevrolet and a smaller tan Buick. “How did so many of you travel in that station wagon?” I have been asked.

My reply: “You’d be surprised how many kids you can get in a station wagon if you stack them right.”

My second earliest memory is a snapshot from the hallway of the parsonage in El Paso. I woke up in my father’s arms as he carried me from the living room to my bed. The memory of being suspended and secure in his embrace stayed with me all these years. This memory may be the one that captures best how I understand and experience the Heavenly Father. Maybe trusting God comes easier when you know the strong arms of a loving earthly father.

My father’s life was all about Jesus—serving, exalting, and pleasing the One who went to the cross and accomplished such an amazing rescue for sinners like us. He experienced a powerful spiritual transformation when he asked Christ to save him as an 18-year-old. That experience was the emotional and spiritual centerpiece of his life. He found his personal foundation in Christ alone, and he anchored his family in Christ as well.