THANKS FOR EVERYTHING
Dear Friends,
It’s now over 40 years since my dad died: but the final words he ever spoke to me still reverberate like some celestial music in the caverns of my heart.
“Thanks for everything!” he said.
He’d been staying with us in Cumbernauld, and I’d driven him in to catch a train at Central Station in Glasgow. He got out of the car, and with his customary courtesy and the sparkling warmth of his winsome smile he leaned back in and spoke those three short words.
Thanks for everything.
Neither he nor I could have known at the time that those would be the very last words that I’d hear from his lips. And when, not all that long later, he died, his final words came back to mind immediately.
Words addressed to myself. Words that I wished in that instant, with every single fibre of my being – words that I wished had been mine instead to him. The waves of grief, and the surging ocean of gratitude filling my heart, together cried out that it should have been the other way around: that, for all the countless ways in which my life had all along been nurtured, secured and enriched by the grace of his father’s love, I should have been speaking those words to him.
I wanted to tell him a million times over how grateful I was for all that he’d been, for all that he’d done, for all that he’d given me down through the years: I wanted somehow to re-live that moment and say to him, “Dad, thank you so much for everything.” But that they were spoken instead by him to myself was so thoroughly typical of the gentle-man (in every sense) he was: kind and thoughtful; humble, generous, and courteous to the last.
“Thanks for everything!”
He was never one for long-winded speeches! (Yes, I know what you’re thinking!). He didn’t need to be. His actions spoke volumes and poured enormous content into what few words he’d speak. And those three words held a whole great world of godly truth whose impact on my soul was vast. There and then, when he died, I made a wish, a vow – I’m not quite sure just what it was – a heartfelt resolution that I’d be continually careful to ensure, please God, that my last words would ever be, to everyone, full, like my dad’s, of grace. Gracias, as they say in Spain. Which, of course, is what the Scriptures teach: “let your speech always be full of grace.” Always.
So gratitude and gracias is the note on which I want to close as I come to the end of these last special years as minister here at Gilcomston. How could it be otherwise? Gratitude that’s so deeply felt, so sincerely meant, and so very eagerly conveyed – for all that none of my words can ever begin to express such thanks with any sort of adequacy.
I’m grateful to you all for the joy and the blessing there is in being part of the fellowship here. From the start you’ve been kind and thoughtful, supportive and prayerful, full of practical care and generous, timely encouragement – to myself, to Susan, to all of our family too. From the earliest days you have made us feel so entirely at home – enriched by your Christ-centred worship, ennobled by the grace of your brotherly love, inspired by the fire of your zeal for the Lord, and sustained by your heartfelt prayers.
It’s a humbling thing to have known that I was prayed for by so many here for close on 40 years before I’d ever even met you – and to have known that my family was included in those faithful prayers as well. No minister could have asked or wished for more. I have learned so much, found such fulfilment, known such pleasure, and shared such adventure, as together we’ve seen the Lord so graciously and patiently at work among us all amidst the storms and trials and struggles and pains which invariably go with advancing the cause of the gospel of Jesus Christ. More joy, more grace, more kindness and love; more pleasure, more privilege, more friendships and fun; more blessing, surprises and answers to prayer. Immeasurably more, in the words which the Lord impressed on our hearts in those early months of 2017 – immeasurably more than all we could have asked for or imagined.
How could I not be saying to you all, “Thanks for everything!”
Ministry is always a privilege. That we all get to share in the service of Christ is a wonder of God’s grace: and the call from the Lord to the work of the pastor is a privileged calling indeed. I get to share in the special, sacred ‘spaces’ in the lives of countless people: their deepest joys, their toughest trials, their sorest griefs – those hallowed, holy moments and occasions in a person’s life when what they seek above all else is just the sense of God’s own hand upon them, His everlasting arms beneath them and around them, His gracious presence with them, His comfort, peace, and strength imparted to them: moments and occasions so ‘sacred’ and so special that they live with them forever.
Baptising a little girl whose mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother were each very much a part of the fellowship here at Gilcomston, and each of them present to share in such a signal occasion: to minister the sign of God’s covenant love and to have that lovely, visible reminder of the Lord’s great covenant faithfulness down four succeeding generations of a family line – what a rare, and well-nigh unique joy and privilege it was! And what a huge, inestimable privilege it is in every case to baptize an adult or a child.
Marrying a couple, each of them raised as a child of the manse, with that grace of the work of the gospel as the air that they’d breathed from their birth, and now united at last in the kindness of God as husband and wife: flanked on their great wedding day on either side by those who themselves have so faithfully ministered God’s Word, what a privilege again to speak that Word which will shape and inform the life that they’ll now live together, on a day that they’ll never forget. Every marriage service is a high point in a family’s life, a picture of God’s gospel grace in Christ: and to share in the conduct of such an occasion is always a rare and glorious privilege.
Burying a beloved daughter after years of trial and torment for her frail and failing mother – that elderly lady too distraught, distressed, disoriented by all the years have brought her now to countenance any sort of ceremony beyond the pastor’s presence, prayers and preaching as she said her last farewell to her dear girl: too sore for words, but nonetheless another ‘sacred space’, another hallowed moment in a person’s life, and there now as a pastor at her side, just her and me, to re-present the great, good Shepherd Jesus and afford to her the comfort of the King – what a huge and humbling privilege it always is to have that sort of access to the inner shrine of sorrow, pain and anguish, in the buffetings and battles and bereavements people know.
How grateful I am for that sovereign call of our risen Lord on my life.
And how grateful I am for the gift He has given of a wife at my side who has borne, out of sight, so much of the cost which ministry always entails. Perhaps it was with something of prophetic foresight that we sang as the opening praise at our marriage service the memorable words of Psalm 103 (to the tune ‘Wiltshire’!) –
O thou, my soul, bless God the Lord, and all that in me is; be stirred up His holy Name to magnify and bless. Bless, O my soul, the Lord thy God, and not forgetful be of all His gracious benefits He hath bestowed on thee.
Don’t ever forget all His many benefits! How easy it is to lose sight of all such, to have them all get crowded out by the pressures and the busy-ness of life: and to cease, thereby, being thankful. “Forget not all His benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (Ps.103.3-5). Blessing after blessing after blessing.
Little wonder we’re exhorted, again and again, to give thanks to the Lord our God.
It’s the drum-beat, for instance, of Psalm 136.
“Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His love endures for ever. Give thanks to the God of gods; His love endures for ever. Give thanks to the Lord of lords; His love endures for ever. ..” – and so on for 26 verses, a veritable alphabet of gratitude and praise, right on through to the climactic final line, “Give thanks to the God of heaven: His love endures for ever”.
It’s the sequel, according to Paul, of being filled with the Spirit of God.
“Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph.5.18-20). For everything. Always.
It’s the pattern the man adopted himself in the letters we have from his hand. As we found at the start of our studies in Romans – “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you ..” (Rom.1.8). As he is careful to start his letter to the trouble-strewn church at Corinth – “I always thank my God for you because of His grace given you in Christ Jesus ..” (1 Cor.1.4). As he wrote to the church he’d planted at Ephesus – “I have not stopped giving thanks for you ..” (Eph.1.16): to the church at Philippi – “I thank my God every time I remember you ..” (Phil.1.3): to the church at Colossae – “we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you” (Col.1.3). You get the drift! Gracias. Always.
And of course, it’s the pattern of Jesus Himself, the constant, settled perspective of a thankful heart. Receiving the bread and the fish from the boy, with a massive crowd to feed, and giving thanks to His Father, the great and timely Provider. Confronting the challenge of raising the dead as He stood at the tomb of His friend: “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me ..”
Gratitude. Always. For everything. It’s a hallmark of heaven itself.
I remember a lady in Cumbernauld, years ago now, who provided a home for her daughter and her son-in-law: did everything for them – washed their clothes, cleaned their room, cooked their meals. Everything. ‘I love doing it for them,’ she said, ‘and I’m always happy to do so. But ..’ and she paused for a moment, pondering, I think, as to whether to say any more: ‘.. but I wish that, even just from time to time, they’d simply say, “Thank you”’.
Well, I’m saying ‘Thank you’!
I’m thanking you for all that you have been and done for Susan, myself and our family. For being who you are and doing what you do: for sharing your hearts and your homes and your lives with us all, and for doing it all with such evident, generous grace. The blessing we’ve known in being part of the fellowship here knows no bounds; and it’s therefore a comfort and joy beyond any words to know we’ll continue to share in your family life as a people so signally blessed down the years, with Nathan now called to the helm.
And above all that I’m thanking the Lord Himself, thanking our Lord Jesus Christ for the mercy He’s shown, for the call He has given, for the service He’s shared, for the strength He’s imparted, for the people among whom He’s set us – and for the great surging hope that the best is still to come!
My dad taught me well. Thanks for everything!
I remain, always, truly and fully yours in Christ Jesus our Lord
Jeremy Middleton