Some friendships are born in unexpected places. Mine tend to be born in very unexpected places, usually ones with locked doors. And sometimes the person you think you are encouraging turns around and reminds you he has been encouraging you the whole time.
A while back I wrote in this log about Brandon, the man with the most infectious smile in the world, who picked me up from jail, took me to Kentucky Fried Chicken, and ran the 5:30 Club. I figured that was the end of it. I wrote him a thank-you in public, and in my experience, public thank-yous are like tossing a message in a bottle off the side of the ship. You hope it lands somewhere. You do not expect a reply.
He wrote back.
I am going to share part of what he said, because it is better than anything I could write, and because it contains the single most accurate sentence anyone has ever written about me.
Greetings Brother, Hey man, I’m glad to see you’re doing well, man I appreciate the very kind words. I do my best to try to keep my smile infectious, and make sure that the way I’m treating others and the way people see me carrying myself goes a long way into people’s being able to heal. It feels so good to be remembered and recognized for the very thing that I pride myself on doing the most.
Notice what he says there. He keeps his smile infectious on purpose. It is not an accident of personality. It is a discipline. He decided that the way he carries himself could help other people heal, and then he did it every day, at 5:30 in the morning, while mopping a floor. I have decided many things in my life. I have carried out about a third of them.
JC, you yourself were an inspiration to me just from the musical taste and your zeal for life and the pursuit of it in general. You yourself have a certain favor from the Lord… You, my friend, were a shining light, you my friend were a great example of someone who can come out of a dark place and take it step-by-step and rise up. I know Jesus isn’t through with you, even though you’re kinda old Haha.
There it is. Even though you’re kinda old. Haha.
I have been called many things over fifty-seven years. Some of them were printed in official documents. None of them landed quite like that one, because none of them were so lovingly, so cheerfully, so completely true. I am kinda old. I have the knees to prove it. I have a relationship with stairs that I would describe as adversarial. And still, apparently, Jesus is not through with me. I find that both comforting and slightly alarming. He has clearly got more work planned, and I have seen how His projects go.
Then he wrote this: there is so much more work for you to do in the kingdom, and so many more people to be touched by your kind words and your larger-than-ever containable personality. I want that phrase on my tombstone. Here lies JC. Larger than ever containable. The State of Alabama tried. It could not be done.
He closed by saying he loved me, that I could always reach out if I needed him, and that he was subscribed to WeRockTV and would be looking for more content. So now I have a subscriber with a perfect attendance record at 5:30 a.m. The pressure is considerable. I cannot let Brandon down. He has seen me without coffee.
Here is what got me about the letter. I wrote about Brandon because I saw something extraordinary in ordinary kindness. He carried joy into hard circumstances. He treated people like they mattered. He reminded me that a smile can be a ministry. And all that time, he says, he was looking at me and seeing something too. Musical taste. Zeal for life. Favor from the Lord. A man coming out of a dark place one step at a time.
I did not know he saw any of that. I was mostly focused on not crying into my coffee and keeping the mop moving.
Sometimes we think we are the ones carrying the light, only to find out somebody else has been carrying it for us. And sometimes we think somebody else is carrying it for us, and it turns out we were carrying a little of it for them. That is friendship. That is fellowship. That is grace, going in both directions at once, like traffic on a two-lane road where everybody is waving.
I think about how close I came to not writing that first entry. I almost did not. I thought, who wants to read about my ride from jail? Who wants to know about the chicken? Turns out at least one person did, and he was the one in the driver’s seat. If you have been meaning to tell somebody what they mean to you, this is your sign. Write it down. Send it. You never know who is going to write back, or what they will say, or whether they will mention your age.
Brandon, thank you. For the laughter, the encouragement, and the reminder that Jesus is not finished with either one of us. I will keep the content coming. I will try to keep the smile infectious, though mine is more of a mild rash compared to yours. And I accept the part about being kinda old. I will be kinda older by the time you read this.
Good News. Good Music. Good Works. And good friends.
“Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.”
1 Thessalonians 5:11 (KJV)
— JC
Leave a Reply