Blessed From an Unlikely Source

Tonight was the opening worship service kicking off Holston’s Annual Conference in Lake Junaluska.  It was a Service of Remembrance where we name those clergy and clergy spouses who have died since last year’s conference.  It was a memorable service, full of Spirit, with outstanding singing, preaching and capped off with Holy Communion.   Yet, as inspiring as all of that was, none of it compared to the blessing I received from a most unlikely source.

Contained within our worship program for the evening is a picture and biography of every person that passed away this past year.   There were over 40 such entries.  While each was being named and honored I flipped through the book, randomly reading bits and pieces of various people’s lives.  My eyes stopped and began reading half-way down the biography of one William A. Adams who lived from 1927 until 2008.  I never met this man nor had I heard of him until this moment but I suspect I will not forget him.   Here is what I read….

Bill was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2003 and over the next five years, gradually lost his memory.  In 1999, he wrote of his perceived “dimming of memory” to his friend Sullins Lamb, who quoted it’s conclusion in his eulogy:

“…I have viewed this as deterioration.  Most lately, I have considered this development as an act of God.  Would that it were so!  I know that God loves me.  If He is the author of my amnesia, I am therefore most blessed!  If my mind is led by a loving God, what care have I for its loss or replacement?  I did not accomplish my mind. I discovered it to be present.  I found it helpful.  If I discover it to be working differently by the hand of a loving God, then this new thing has blessed meaning and a happy service to be realized.

Even though that realization might wait for my body’s demise,  I am confident that it holds only to be disclosed in a light bright enough to show its worth and beauty.  So I am comforted.  I did not realize God with my mind, but with my heart.  In some new ‘day,’ perhaps my heart shall ‘know’ love, and in that meeting my mind shall find rest and my heart leap up to thank God who made it so.”  

As I wiped the tears that formed in my eyes away I realized that this voice from beyond describes a deepness of faith I do not yet possess.  I believe that the Rev. Bill Adams knows now just as fully as he has been known.  Even now, from beyond the veil, his life has inspired me to take one more step closer to God.    For that, I am forever grateful to this pastor.

I look forward to meeting you one day, William A. Adams.