Tim Grissom
One morning a few weeks ago I looked out my kitchen window and noticed that the garbage can I’d taken out to the street the night before had been moved. The city’s trash hauler was due any minute, so if I didn’t get out there quickly and set it back in place, my garbage wouldn’t get picked up until the following week.
Fret not; I made it in time. Order was restored . . . kind of. In my mind this very little situation started to grow: Who moved the can? Why did they move it? Could it have held two weeks worth of garbage if I hadn’t seen it in time? How can I keep this from happening again?
I rapidly shifted from confusion to irritation to worry to prevention strategy . . . over a garbage can.
Little things often trigger my worst reactions.
Thankfully, God reeled me back in, maybe chuckling a little as He did, and then reminded me about the birds and the wildflowers. He takes care of them without their tactical input and He takes care of me—in the little things and the big ones.
Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they? Can any of you add one moment to his life span by worrying? And why do you worry about clothes? Observe how the wildflowers of the field grow: They don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these. (Matthew 6:26–29)
I don’t need to strategize a defense to keep things from going wrong (as if I could). I can’t offer God any more assistance than the birds do, or the flowers. And they seem to be doing just fine with Him in control.
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I’m not saying that grief was the onset of my obsessing ways, but it sure gave them a boost. The loss of a loved one, and the many changes it sets in motion conspires against our sense of order and control. Worrying and obsessing seep into the cracks that grief has opened up.
But it never really was our order, was it? We were never tasked with holding our world together. And perhaps this is one of the favors that loss does for us—if we let it. It helps us notice the little things God does, like watching over birds and flowers and kinetic garbage cans. And we know that if He cares that much about the little stuff, He certainly cares about the big.
© 2022 by Tim Grissom. All rights reserved.
- Tim Grissom
I’ve been thinking a lot about legacies, probably because last Friday marked the seventeenth year since my dad’s passing. He still means so much to me; I’m still learning from him.
Like all father-and-son relationships, ours was spotted with a few imperfections—but not too many and none that ever drove us apart. My memories of him are 99% positive. Thomas Grissom was a good man.
Some people try to establish their own legacies by putting their names on buildings, scholarship funds, and city parks. There’s nothing wrong with any of those, but in my opinion the truest form of legacy is an extension of the life the person lived, not an addendum to it. It’s a continuation of a reputation earned, not a salvage operation.
So, when I think about Dad’s legacy, it‘s all about how he lived in his small corner of the universe. In his case, it’s pretty basic stuff, really: work hard, live within your means, try fixing it before replacing it, be honest, be helpful, don’t retaliate, and make time for fishing and watching baseball. Quietly strong. Humbly influential.
I loved that man.
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I read a story about a store clerk who was known for being lazy. Whenever there was hard work to be done, he’d conveniently disappear. When a regular customer noticed that the clerk wasn’t there one day, he asked the store owner:
“Where’s Eddie? Is he sick?”
“Nope, he ain’t workin’ here no more.”
“Do you have anyone in mind for the vacancy?”
“Nope. Eddie didn’t leave any vacancy.”
One way that grief serves us well is by putting us in touch with our own mortality. The death of a loved one reminds us that our days will come to an end too, that our lives will become legacies . . . and will hopefully leave vacancies.
It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of all mankind,
and the living will lay it to heart.
—Ecclesiastes 7:2
© 2022 by Tim Grissom. All rights reserved.