Proverbs 15:13 (NIV)
A happy heart makes the face cheerful,
but heartache
crushes the spirit.
"Son!", Tim's father shouted, "Is it
possible you could please turn that noise down!?" Tim, who had only two
months earlier earned his driver's license, calmly ejected his favorite music
CD that had his favorite song on it.
"Sorry dad, but I love that song cranked up loud
because it makes me happy every time I hear it!", Tim less than calmly
replied with a grin on his face. His father glanced over in his son's direction
briefly with a look of disgust. "Tim", his father finally responded, "What
on earth makes you happy by listening to that screaming guitar and what's the
name of that garbage?"
Tim softly smiled as he vowed to himself that he would
not become the same bitter, constantly angry, negative, and sadly miserable
father he had seen his entire life who sat unsettled next to him on the drive
home. His mother tried her best to fend off any possible future negativity in
Tim, their only son and child, by always praising him and occasionally clapping
in rhythm to the music Tim would ask her to hear.
She had grown weary of trying to explain to Tim of how
happy his father was when they first got married. In fact, Tim told his mother
one day many months prior that she didn't have to defend his dad. He told her
that he would be more like her when he got married and had a family to call his
own.
"Well dad, the song is called "Happy" and
Phil Keaggy wrote it. He's a great guitar player and sings great too!"
Tim's impudent father rolled his eyes and replied, "All I hear is that
blasting guitar so Mr. Keaggy or whatever his name is must have lost his vocal
chords," his father bitterly answered.
"No way dad! You tell me to turn if off before he
gets the chance to sing! You never listen long enough to hear the words!"
His father shifted in his seat and pointed to a scripture
Tim had pinned up on the old sun-visor of the car Tim had bought a week before
he got his driver's license. The old AMC Pacer was all Tim could afford with
the money he'd earned since he was 14 mowing lawns in their neighborhood.
"That church you go to would be ashamed of you boy
if they only knew the trash you listen to that makes you so happy! Your mom
takes you there but it's obviously a waste of her time. And you wonder why I
don't go?!", his father replied again with that same unsettled look Tim
was painfully accustomed to seeing.
As Tim neared the familiar bend in the narrow two-lane
road leading to their home, a new red sport's car was clearly out of control.
Tim frantically tried to steer to the right but the red bullet slammed into the
driver's side of the Pacer--sending it swirling up a sharp grassy incline where
again, the Pacer hit with great force on Tim's side of the car against a big
maple tree.
Tim's father was jarred but had not one blemish as he
looked over and saw Tim's face covered in blood slumped forward and resting
with no movement on the steering wheel.
"Oh God! Someone help my son!" Tim's father
shouted as he ran to the street to flag down a motorist. The driver of the red
sport's car, also without a blemish, ran from his slightly damaged car with a
cell phone in his hand. "Sir, I'm sorry! Here's my phone!" The
college aged young man shouted with a strong smell of beer on his breath.
Tim was taken to the same hospital where his mother, with
his father by her side, was rushed to when he was born. As Tim's mother arrived
in the emergency room, she embraced her distraught husband as both cried with
fear uncontrollably. The doctor who'd administered only 30 minutes of treatment
in an effort to save their son's life, asked them to come to a private room.
"I have only had to share this kind of news three
times since I began working in the emergency room at this hospital and three
times is way too many times," the gray haired doctor somberly stated.
"Your son's chest cavity was crushed and we did all we could, but he
didn't have the strength to hold on."
Tim's parents placed their hands to their faces, sobbing
and hoping that what they had just heard was wrong. "Doctor, Tim's mother
through anguished words asked, "Are you telling me my son is dead?"
The doctor steadied himself and gained as much composure as he could before
replying, "Yes ma'am, your son's injuries were extremely severe but he was
cognitive for the last ten minutes we were trying to save him." Tim's
parents looked startled and awaited grievously for what the doctor would say
next.
"Your son smiled at me and asked that if he died,
that I'd promise to tell his dad something. I don't know, sir, what your son's
final words will mean to you, but I am going to honor his request. I've never,
in all 27 years of practicing medicine, heard anyone speak with such strength
and clarity as your son did being in the condition that he was in. Sir, he
asked me to tell you to...please listen long enough to hear the words."
Tim's father melted to the floor and the doctor discerned
that it would be best to leave the grieving parents alone in the private room.
Two weeks after Tim's burial, his father opened the
passenger's side door of the Pacer that he simply could not bear to sell. He
took the music CD from the car's CD player and pulled the scripture down that
remained on the visor. He got in his Jeep and turned Tim's favorite song up
loudly and listened through the guitar solo until he heard the soulful man's
tenor voice sing the words to this song entitled "Happy."
The lyrics rang out joyfully, "I'm so happy Lord;
I'm so grateful Lord since You came to me; You set me free and You welcomed me,
in Your family..."
He listened to the song repeatedly for a solid hour before
he pulled his new Jeep he'd selfishly bought only three days after Tim so
happily bought his old beat up AMC Pacer. The Jeep meant nothing to him but as
he pulled the scripture out of his shirt pocket, he knew what Tim had been
trying to tell him for so many years. Tearfully he read the pin-punctured
note's words: "A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache
crushes the spirit." Proverbs 15:13
Dear Lord, help us to take the time to listen to the
end. We pray that we would be cheerful
in all that we do. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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