23 As they sailed, he fell asleep.
Luke 8:23
The smell of black coffee and cigarette smoke stained the table where I ate. It sat just juxtaposed to the kitchen where the sweet sound of hymns were sung by a small and frail godly woman I called grandma Jacobs. The memory bleeds through like a holiday dinner, but in truth it just may have been a regular Saturday night at the Jacobs house.
Hords of people coming and going. Food out to eat on at random and the largest coffee pot I had ever seen. That kitchen table was filled with men and their smokes telling stories of days gone by.
We didn’t spend many weekends there as child, but the ones we did became unforgettable. And not because of typical grandparent fashion . No, I am one of 33 or 34 grandkids. I lost count at some point. So rather than propped on grandpa’s lap, I got an ear tug as he passed to get another cup of coffee.
The stickiness of the memory was the stark contrast of life lived in the Jacobs house. My grandma was a stalwart Jesus following faith filled woman. She paced the floor praying in tongues and shouting down the devil. My grandfather was a cigarette smoking, cussing black coffee black topper. He was about as warm and fuzzy as a Brillo pad. His affection spilled out on to my little frame of boy through his gruff voice that sounded like exhaust from one of my uncle’s muscle cars.
It wasn’t until my teen years that I really got to know the Jacobs’. We had always lived quite a distance from them. That changed after the divorce of my parents and mom moved us closer the Windy City family. What my childhood summation proved out was that Grandma loved Jesus and Grandpa liked her going to church.
For many, many years my grandfather would drive the pretty little lady dressed in Sunday best to the church down the street. Drop her off, pick her up once the service was done. The woman who’s faith was bigger than her frame probably survived more of life’s storms than her words would ever expressed. The mother of 11 had probably chased off more days filled with thunder than I will ever walk through in my life.
I have often wondered on those days as a God-fearing woman who had a husband who was a bit of roughneck how many days she felt like the disciples in Luke 8. Some of these men were more than likely gifted on the water. They had previously made their living hauling in nets full of fresh fish. But this particular three hour tour had the Skipper and Gilligan a little overwhelmed. And there was Jesus…asleep.
As I reflect on my Grandma Jacobs, surely in the storms of marriage and raising 11 kids there were days that she felt Jesus was asleep in the boat of life. I can’t verify this was the exact occurrence, but I imagine her prayer was much like the disciples on that night. My grandfather’s hard living ways had caught up to him and left him hospitalized. I am unsure of the prayers prayed in the midst of that storm, but I am betting it was a prayer to awake Jesus.
In the midst of the storm the disciples faced “the disciples went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!” Jesus “got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm”.
Grandma went and woke up Jesus. Life was overwhelming. Her husband of many years was seemingly on the edge of death. Then Jesus walked in to my grandfathers room and calmed the storm.
The story passed down from the gruff man is that “a man dressed in all white called him by name”. The next time Grandma went to church, Grandpa parked the car and went in with her.
Maybe the storm has felt like forever. Maybe you feel like Jesus is sleeping through your life situation. What I learned from the little lovely lady of faith is when you call out to Jesus, he calms the storms. Sometimes we just need to go to the back of the boat and ask him to calm it for us…
justbeingjeff
