First, I just want to thank you all for coming today to honor the memory of my dear Uncle Jay. It’s wonderful to see some of the many people that he touched with his life. I know my life would not be the same without his influence.
I was a good kid in high school—didn’t get into trouble, had straight A’s, was headed to the best colleges, my parents always loved me and worked hard to care for me... But as I looked around me, I wasn’t all that thrilled with what the world had to offer. It all just seemed so self-gratifying. And that was not fulfilling to me. It was then that I received the best birthday present that I’ve ever gotten: For my sixteenth birthday, my wonderful Aunt Muriel and Uncle Jay gave me a trip to a week-long Christian camp in British Columbia!
During one of the meetings at this camp, God unexpectedly showed Himself to me in a very real way. So I wound up giving my life to Him, realizing that if I allowed God to live His life through me, He could do a far better job with my life than I could. He gave me satisfaction and fulfillment.
It was at this time that I discovered that Muriel and Jay had given me another immeasurable gift: they had prayed for me every single day of my life.
I can’t overstate how much these two gifts from Jay and Muriel have influenced my life. Without Christ, I never would have been able to weather the difficult years in my life. Without Him, I wouldn’t be celebrating 21 years of marriage with my wonderful Christian husband. I wouldn’t have 5 beautiful, godly children, who aren’t perfect, but who are trying to serve God. And we wouldn’t be living in Washington DC, trying in our own small way, to influence for the better this nation’s culture and government.
Of course, Jay and Muriel have also greatly loved and encouraged me through the years, too. I was always excited when they would visit us wherever we happened to be living—Denver, Kansas City and Virginia Beach; and driving way too fast to get there, I might add! (Jay had quite the lead foot.) One thing my kids wanted me to mention that Jay liked to do with them was, every now and then, he’d shock them by unexpectedly popping out his false teeth!!
I am so thankful for Jay’s life. I owe him so much.
Oh, and the last thing that Jay said to me when I saw him in October? As I was walking away, he said, “We pray for you every day.”In Theology of the Body language, my aunt and uncle had a unique capacity for others. Their other-oriented love abided in me and opened an opportunity for me that I would not have had otherwise and facilitated my new life in God. They took me into their hearts and to the throne of God as if I were their own child.
More specifically, at the Young Life camp as I sat on the floor holding hands with a bunch of strangers, I physically felt the Holy Spirit in the form of love pass from the person on my right, through me, to the person on my left—and I knew right then that God was real even though I had not had a Christian upbringing. And I gave my heart to him in love that night and was never the same. As Raniero Cantalamessa says, “The same change that falling in love creates between two people is created by the coming of the Holy Spirit in the relationship between God and man” (Life in Christ: A Spiritual Commentary on the Letter to the Romans, 123).
When we allow the Holy Spirit to live through us on a daily basis, He takes us out of ourselves and empowers us to take others into our hearts in love creating the possibility for life, as my aunt and uncle did for me. This is what Love looks like for this is what Jesus did.
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