When you are all in
Believe in something, go all in, and be free from the binds that hold you back.
On the phone yesterday with my good friend Jeff, he asked if I had the address for John Peterson. John had been the priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Tampa to hundreds of families who attended that church before his retirement in 2000. John was a friend, mentor, pastor and advocate for anyone in need of the Good News and grew that Church to more than 2,000 members during his tenure. He was a humble man, but a giant to all who were fed by his faith and compassion and steadfast work for Christ. My own husband, who was raised Baptist and who had left the church before we married, became confirmed as an Episcopalian after meeting Father Peterson and hearing him preach. He had a way of reaching your soul.
“I want to write him and thank him for a sermon he preached back in the 1990s that I’ve never forgotten,” Jeff said. Curious what the message was that had been embedded in his memory for decades I asked him what it was about.
“There is no prenuptial with God,” Jeff said, and he went on to share the importance of being “all in” and how “hell is when you in the middle; when you are not 100% committed to something but pushed and pulled between moving forward, but tied to conditions that hold you back.” As Jeff spoke, I realized the power of those words, and considered several instances in my own life where I was not “all in” and the truth of the wrestle that consumed me. I knew exactly what he meant and reflected on God’s invitation to commit fully to receiving his unconditional love, following his son, Jesus Christ, and receiving the bounty that has no limits.
After the call with Jeff, I continued to ponder the conversation and reflected on my father’s last 100 days of life as he showed us his “all in” belief that God’s love was greater than death. And, the peace that prevailed over our home and our hearts despite the sadness and despair of the pending loss. For me, it was the ultimate example of being “all in.” When there is nothing left but the big question of whether we believe there is more than life on this earth; whether there is more than our humanity; whether we believe that we are simply not in charge.
Dad had chosen to surrender everything and put his trust fully in God; that he was in the hands of the Almighty who had made heaven and earth. The oceans and the mountains. The sun and the moon. Darkness and light. And because Dad was “all in,” it was, ironically, almost easy for him to surrender. Every breath and moment during those 100 days was free from the wrestle of fear, which afforded him clarity in his final days. He was free to love, to remember, to praise and worship, to cry, to hope and anticipate, to persevere through the pain, to listen, to pray, to be present to the season where he was alive despite his looming death.
Like the memory of Father Peterson’s words seared in Jeff’s mind, the memory of Dad’s decision to be “all in” to the unconditional love of God continues to fervently shine brighter than the unmistakable darkness of his death.