grace

Lost. I knew him then. He showed me the nifty light he'd attached to the inside of the hood on an old hot rod sitting up on blocks in the back yard. There was a funny-looking plant growing where the engine should have been. We rolled and burned a few together, scanned the newest Playboys and Hustlers, raised a little hell together. That's what lost boys do. He was all about the laid-back, low-down scuz, cuz, rolling from one pleasure to the next. Lost, and with every legitimate human reason to be. Thirty something years worth.

I listened as he talked about those days over coffee a year and half ago in Fort Worth, Texas. We were there burying our cousin, Gerald, who died with heart problems at age 34. He told me story after story about how his life was miraculously spared, and how afterward, he would mentally chalk it up to just being really lucky. But deep in his heart, he knew what really happened. And then the tears would begin to pour from his eyes and down his face past trembling lips. "Aubrey," between small sobs he would speak slowly in his deep, soothing tone, "I knew then, like I know now, it was nothin' but the hand o' God keepin' me from dyin' in my sin and goin' to a Devil's hell." His face began to shine as he would begin to verbally worship God while telling me the stories. "God's grace, his amazin' grace reached down to the nasty ol' pit I was in and pulled me out. (sob) But what I just can't get over, is I deserved the worst, but God keeps givin' me His best." Chris had turned the reins of his life over to Jesus, and the difference in him was unmistakable. Where once there had been an insatiable thirst for vice and decadence, in its place was the glow of the love of God. I was transfixed as I listened, and I could feel that sweet, sweet Spirit in every word and sob and praise he uttered.

The last several years of his life he suffered with many health problems, many that were magnified because of hard living during those lost years. Every couple of weeks he would call to ask how I was doing. "Aubrey, God put you on my heart, man. What's goin' on? How can I pray for you?" I would share all my stupid grievances against the world, and he would listen patiently. Then he would begin to tell me things that God was doing: opportunities to share the Lord with an old ramblin' buddy, something God had done for him, or spoken to him at church. During those talks, he would inevitably mention how much he was undeserving of all God was doing, and how he was truly amazed at it. Talking with him always lifted my spirit, and caused me to worship the Lord instead of being stuck in my misery.

Sometime during the night on June 23rd, Chris' health problems ceased as he stepped into the most wonderful gift that he never deserved, and the most surprising reward that he does deserve because he allowed the grace of God to wash through him and fill him up to pour out upon others. It was that grace that so amazed him. I am reminded of it now. "Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more." Thank you Lord Jesus, for letting me see You in my precious cousin and friend, Chris Lavigne. And thank You, Jesus, for Your amazing grace.