Bubble Gum Smiles…

by Debbie Allen

Pastor Jonathan juggled his brief case and a steaming cup of coffee, while making his way up the crumbling, cement steps of the Presbyterian church on Maine Street, in Olde Towne Littleton.   It was his church, as well as a second home to him, for the last twenty years. With great difficulty, he struggled to turn his key in the hundred-year-old arched, oak entryway door. Placing a weary shoulder up against the door. he gave it a hefty push until it flung wide open.  Once inside the foyer, he secured the door again; knowing it would be a couple of hours before anyone else would enter the building.

 A set of double doors which opened up into the small sanctuary before him drew his gaze.

“Hmmmm…someone must have left the lights on last night.” he thought, heading for the switch inside the doors.

 Poking his head inside the double doors, his jaw dropped.  Hundreds of tiny strands of morning’s first-light streaming in through an eastern exposure of stained-glass windows splattered an array of color across the entire sanctuary in kaleidoscopic beauty. In the midst of this rare display of quiet splendor, Pastor Jonathan’s eyes fixed themselves on his pulpit. It had been beautifully transformed into more of a pedestal of Hope. Stretched out across the top of it, lay a perfect smiling reflection of the little Baby Jesus. 

“Good morning, Lord.” Jonathan uttered, smiling back.  “And thank you. Thank you for giving me such a beautiful picture to dwell upon this morning.“

Sipping on his coffee, he lingered a moment longer in the sanctuary and then added softly, “I know You surely must mean it as the replacement thought for that dreadful image of the empty green chair that haunts me every morning. But Lord, my heart…it’s still so tender.  And the emptiness…well, it just seems so incredibly big.” 

Pastor Jonathan continued praying silently, while walking down a narrow corridor leading him into his study.  He looked upon this early morning refuge as more a place of solace than of duty.   Lately, these early hours provided him a much-needed hiding place, to escape his unwanted thoughts of the empty green chair back at home. His wife, Lorna’s chair. The one sitting so silently in a corner of his living room.

“Only six short months ago…” he thought, shaking his head. That’s when the cancer stole her away from him so suddenly. Every morning since then, he tried to turn his eyes away from the chair as he passed by it. But the image remained…as if branded into his thoughts. Plagued by the thought of it, Pastor Jonathan made his way over to his desk and sat down to try and focus on Sunday’s sermon.

Opening his Bible, he read quietly for the next hour and a half.  Thats when his eyes fell upon these words in Ecclesiastes.

     “Everything is appropriate in its own time. But though God has planted eternity in the hearts of men, even so, many cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.” he read aloud. (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

His Bible still in hand, he walked a few steps beyond his desk to bask in a shaft of warm sunlight, streaming in through a cathedral window.

“Everything is appropriate in its own time.” he repeated again.       

“How true this is, Lord. Even as a man of God, I can barely see my way past this one green chair in my life.”

“E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.”  No doubt this word includes my emptiness.” He said in a reflective tone.

Glancing up from his book, Pastor Jonathan caught sight of a group of small children waving at him from the courtyard below.  He couldn’t help but smile as they giggled and ran away the very minute he acknowledged them. In a remote corner of that same courtyard, he spotted a young couple almost hidden by a maple tree reaching over them like an enormous umbrella.  Studying them for a bit, he shook his head sadly, as he watched the young man storm-off in another direction, leaving the girl sobbing in the corner by herself.

 “Emptiness again, Lord. It is in every corner of our world these days.”

Returning to his desk, he grabbed his pen.  Eyeing a blank page in his journal, he began to write:

Monday…Oct.4, 1998

Concerning ‘emptiness…’

A blank piece of paper.  The silence of a song whose melody remains unwritten.  A green chair where no one comes to sit anymore.  The strained beating of a heart steeped in the pain of a broken relationship…

All of these are reflections of the shadowy side of life.  They each speak of a hidden void which eventually seeps into every human soul, as we encounter our battles in life. Each in its own way reeks of the cruelty of emptiness. But Lord… Is it ever possible for emptiness to present itself as a ‘gift’ in this world?

By now Pastor’s two deep-brown eyes had taken refuge under the precipice of his great brow.  Spidery creases ran throughout his forehead like little tributaries, cut there by a swelling river of concern for the needs of those all around him.  In the midst of wrestling with life, Pastor Jonathan glanced up to find three-year-old, Jenny standing silently in the doorway; just looking at him.

 “Well, hello Jenny.”  He said, surprised to see anyone standing there. 

Jenny had been one of the children who waved to him from the courtyard a few moments earlier. 

“Just what is it that brings you in here today, little one?” he said, kneeling down to her eye level.

Jenny immediately flashed a million-dollar smile back at him before answering.

“Mmm…nuffing, Pastor Jonafin.” she managed to say before shrugging and looking down at her feet. “Mommy is parking the car.  She said for me to wait here… an…ummm…I have sumfing for you.”

With these precious words, Jenny opened her tightly crumpled fingers revealing three shiny, new pennies.

“For you.”  She repeated, her eyes sparkling like diamonds as she spilled them out into his giant hand.

Carefully, she folded his fingers up around the pennies, pushing his hand gently away from her. 

Even though her hand was now empty, Pastor Jonathan could see that her heart remained as full as any three-year-old’s heart could ever be.

You see, as she stood in the doorway of his office earlier, she studied the look he wore on his face.  Every line…. every grimace…every fold troubled her. Though she could not begin to understand the reason for them; somehow… in the wisdom of a little child, she knew she needed to do something to bring back his missing smile.  The one she so loved seeing on his face.

“Thank you, Jenny…thank you!”

His heart still melting inside his chest, he reached up and pulled her face into his gaze.  He could find no more words, but she seemed perfectly content with the ear-to-ear grin he now displayed.

“It wooked!” she shrieked, giving Pastor Jonathan a big hug.

Right away she remembered the joy she felt when her Mommy placed those pennies into her own hand that morning.  Immediately, visions of pink bubblegum began to dance in her head!  And…in the mind of this three-year-old ‘visionary’, the same miracle just worked for Pastor Jonathan too.

Watching her skip out the door, Pastor Jonathan sighed; feeling as though he’d just been given a bear-hug by God Himself.

“Whoever thinks to look for the answer to some of the world’s biggest problems in some of the world’s smallest places…in the hand of a child?” he marveled silently.

With pen-in-hand, he again sat down to write.  Seeing the three shiny pennies on the desk before him continued to warm his thoughts; filling up his heart like the warm waters of a sweet tea descending into an empty cup. Closing his eyes, he pictured Jenny’s little hand laying in his own giant palm. When those three pennies fell from her hand into his, he clearly remembered hearing a still small Voice within him saying, “Come to Me…and let Me teach you.”

Inspired by Jenny’s generosity, Pastor Jonathan’s thoughts flowed faster than his ink could form the words on paper.

“Truly…” he wrote, “…even emptiness, is appropriate in its own time.” Within the next thirty minutes, he completed Sunday’s sermon.  He entitled it, “Unselfish Giving”.

The following Sunday, Pastor Jonathan delivered this message to his congregation.  Not one dry eye remained in the sanctuary by the time he finished speaking…including his own. As he stepped from behind his podium after the service, a man intercepted him before he could reach the foyer.

“Here you go, Pastor. These are for you!” a man spoke through a toothy grin, before dropping three quarters into his hand.

“There’s one for each of Jenny’s pennies.” he explained. “Thank you.” Pastor said, still somewhat taken back by such a gesture.   On his way to the foyer, another member of the congregation stepped forward and placed three one-dollar bills in his hand.

“Powerful message…” the lady said still daubing her eyes as she walked away from him.

To his astonishment, one of the choir members intercepted him in the parking lot, handing him three one-hundred-dollar bills. 

Watching the man walk away, Pastor Jonathan sat humbled, and speechless in his car; overwhelmed by the generosity and response of so many in his congregation.

“How could I have ever doubted what You are able to accomplish through the hand of a little child, Lord?” he pondered on the drive home.

And so it went throughout the next week. Every morning when Pastor Jonathan entered his study, he continued to find new stacks of donations in a pile on his desk.  After giving it much thought, he decided he needed to do something special with the money.

“Janice…” he said, peeking his head out the door in search of the church secretary.  “You know that drinking fountain we’ve been needing in this foyer for so long?”

“Yes, Pastor…” she replied in a hopeful tone.

“Go ahead and have it installed.” “Oh and…one more thing.  I need you to have a bronze plaque made with these words inscribed on it,” he added walking towards her.

Her brow scrunched; Janice picked her way through the scribbles written down on the little piece of paper he handed her.

“JENNY’S THREE PENNY FOUNTAIN,” she read aloud, a giant grin of approval overtaking her frown.

“That’s right, Janice.  I want to dedicate the fountain to little Jenny. I want it to be a constant reminder to those of us who pass through this foyer, of how God takes such small beginnings and turns them into a much greater end.”

“I’ll give her parents a call, too.”  Janice added, turning to pick up the phone.

On the following Sunday, Pastor dedicated that new drinking fountain to little Jenny. Slipping her small hand into his own, they both approached the fountain together. 

“Do you know what that sign says, Miss Jenny?”  Pastor inquired, pointing up at the little bronze plaque hanging above it.

Tilting her head to one side like she’d been reading since birth, Jenny recited, “Jenny’s Thwee Penny Fowtain.” 

“That’s exactly right…and now you get to take the first drink from your fountain,” he said, picking her up so she could reach the spigot.

“Mmmmm…the water’s just prefit!” she said in a very grown-up way, wiping the overspray from her cheek.

Pastor smiled, knowing she’d meant to say perfect.

“Indeed, it is, Jenny.‘ ‘Prefit’ in every way!” he added letting a mouthful of the cool waters tumble into his own open lips.

Waving good-bye to Jenny, he watched her walk away with her parents, still wiping water from her face.

Bending down to sip again from the fountain, something else occurred to him:

The Greatest Blessing that this world has ever known also entered into this world through the emptiness of a little Child’s Hand.  God’s Child…the Baby Jesus.  From the emptiness of a manger, Jesus’ little Hand reached out into the darkness of this world. Those tiny fingers contained the price of One life, which He willingly spilled out into the hands of this world, to purchase a Fountain for His Church...a Fountain that flows Forevermore!

Pastor’s eyes fell upon the bronze plaque once more.  Running his fingers across each individual letter, he whispered softly,

“Lord… Your plaque would’ve read, “Jesus’ Fountain of Living Water.”

Touched by this thought, Pastor Jonathan continued to marvel at how many ways God had chosen to weave the story of Jenny’s ‘Three Penny Fountain’ into his own emptiness. Heading into his office for the last time, he sat down at his desk to make one final entry into his journal for the week.  Eagerly, he wrote the answer to his question from the Oct. 4^th entry.

Sunday…Oct.16, 1998

Concerning the Gift of Emptiness:

Lord…I ask this question once again, “Is it ever possible for ‘emptiness’ to present itself as a gift to this world?”  From the perspective of both a Pastor and a child of God, all of the wisdom that is needed to answer this question still lays in the Hand of a Child…Your Son, Lord. From the Wisdom of a little Child my heart has come to know these truths:

When you find yourself staring into an empty page…let His Words fill in the blanks.

When facing the unbearable emptiness of a big green chair…Know that His Shoulder is already waiting there for you to cry on. 

If it is a song in life, you lack…the melody has already been written for you. It is Jesus’ Love Song, written especially for you.  The Melody of this Song can always be heard…above even the loudest pounding of your broken heart.

Whatever you find to be the ‘emptiness’ in your cup…allow the Hand of Jesus to spill Love into your own hand. Let Him sweeten your life and fill your cup with the Waters which flow from His Fountain.  It is the Fountain that will always flow; with the unspoken and unforeseen blessings found so unexpectedly hidden in the emptiness of a little Child’s Hand.  Though sometimes we can’t see it, nonetheless it is there.  God put it there…perhaps as a reminder to each of us of the “Blessedness of Emptiness!”

“Come to Me…and let Me teach you.”

(John 11:28a, 30b)