Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful… (Acts 3:2)

My mother’s funeral was very well attended.  Following the service, our home was flooded by dozens of friends who were faded into faceless, sepia-toned images by my state of shock.  But two grief-painted portraits hang side-by-side in memory’s hallowed gallery.

She was a pretty, middle-aged lady who tried with all her might and makeup to be beautiful and wise.  With one arm on my shoulder, she guided me around my mother’s yard, explaining each plant, flower, and emotion of the day’s experiences as if I were a tourist.  She was Job’s friends meets Charlie Brown’s teacher—infuriating and unintelligible!

To the speechless onlookers separated from us by window glass and better judgment, we must have looked like Pain and Comfort quietly walking through Grief’s Garden.  Pedestrians may have observed a beggar at the Beautiful Gate, but grief bends reality making cripples of the strongest.

“Randy Stevens is here to see you,” said a faceless voice.

We were just on the little boy side of toddlerhood when Randy’s parents noticed a problem.  Muscular Dystrophy became the rule which measured the childhood reality of my friend.  What began as weakness all too quickly became struggle, resignation, and a chair.  Disease stole Randy’s health almost as quickly as divorce separated him from childhood friends.  We did not meet again for years.

Doctors predicted Randy would not live to see sixteen.  He was seventeen the night he came to see me after the funeral.  He was only able to see me because he had lost all voluntary motor functions, including his ability to speak.  In a disease-twisted mass on the floor of a van, barely alive, he just looked at me.

On the ugliest day of my young life, I saw something beautiful.

Twenty-five years hence, I am grateful for my ugly beautiful memory of Randy Stevens.  I am only just learning to see the Ugly Beautiful and Randy is one of my tutors.   I am humbled he came to see me.  I am surprised by the wordless volumes he spoke in those brief moments and thankful that tears still come with these recollections.

Forty-one years hence, I am only just beginning to love the Ugly Beautiful and I am humbled by a Savior that came to see us.  I am continually surprised by the wordless volumes the Word became flesh speaks to my soul.  Inescapably drawn to Jesus’ cross,  I am filled with wonder and amazement at a God who bends grief into glory and ugly into beautiful.

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