Wash Me Clean

My grandpa is a man of great stature in the little community where I grew up. He was an elected official, the circuit clerk, for 32 consecutive years. I ran across one of his original newspaper ads when he was first running wherein he offered to give anyone a ride to the polls. There were challengers at times, rough politics and mudslinging, but he maintained a simple principle: be honest, and people will trust you to make the right decisions. So respected was he that he was even the Illinois President of Circuit Clerks for a time. This man, all 5'5" and 135lbs of him, is a giant in the community.

Paul Dean Kernan. PK to his friends. I remember going to the country club with him, playing golf, watching him play cards (he's a shark), hearing all the talk of the older men. The mayor was my favorite, and he took a shine to me. My grandpa, high school educated, hanging out with the mayor in a country club, playing cards. Memories from my youth.

Grandpa was the old-school man. He was self-made, dressed sharp, walked to work, did his job well, provided for his family (wife and five kids), remained faithful to his wife, was strong and silent. Oh, but if he did speak up, the law was laid down. Classic.

I grew up knowing Grandpa didn't go to church. Grandma always did. She is a spiritual pillar in the church in which I was raised. But Grandpa, well, he always had a 'healthy respect' for God. He had nothing against Him. God was honest and fair. So was Grandpa. They had no quarrel in his mind.

Nearly 20 years ago, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's. Most of you know that Parkinson's has no known cure, and it wears out and tears down one's ability to use one's muscles. It is a progressive disease, so it takes its time. In typical fashion, Grandpa took the disease head-on. He retired and played golf every day. He walked. He continued to play cards. And he read. He read like no one I've ever seen. Three to four books a week, minimum. I realized he wasn't simply enjoying his retirement - he was doing everything he knew to keep his mind and body sharp. Yes, there were doctor's visits and medications to take. But he was determined to beat this thing, cure or no cure. Stubborn Irishman.

All of a sudden, friends of his started passing away. Age and health took their toll, and he went to too many funerals. His eyes opened to his mortality, and he wasn't quite sure how to process it.

The first Easter Christen and I were in Chicago, we were part of a production, a passion play, that our church put on called 'The Story of Love'. As loving and determined as ever, my grandparents made the 4-hour trek to join other members of my family in the audience for one of the performances. It was a powerful time, and my pastor stood to preach the gospel. Christen and I were to one side of the stage, having sung for the musical portions. As Pastor made the invitation for people to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, the strangest thing happened: Grandpa raised his hand, stood up, and prayed. He had never done any of those three things in church. Ever.

Suddenly, Grandpa started attending church with Grandma. His hands had a pretty good tremor at that point, but he still drove to church, got in and out of the pew, and stood for worship and prayer and the reading of the Word. He would even belt out some of his more favorite hymns. The change in him was amazing, though he talked about it very little. Ever the stoic, classic man.

The Parkinson's reared its head more and more in the following years. He lost the ability to digest food properly, and then the ability to chew and swallow. A liquid diet was instituted, and Grandma makes sure he gets his food every day. While his mind remains sharp, he lost most of the ability to use his tongue for speech.

When Christen passed, it hit Grandpa much like it hit the rest of us: hard. Now, not only were friends passing but also a granddaughter-in-law who doted on him (and maybe flirted with him a little...he still had that charm). I didn't have a lot of opportunities to talk with him during this time, but I know Grandma kept him updated on how I was doing.

I had the opportunity to go speak to the congregation where I grew up over Labor Day weekend at an outdoor service in the middle of town. It was a beautiful day, and Grandpa and Grandma, loving and determined as ever, came out and sat right in the front row. My message was simple: Jesus is enough. Whether we have it all or have lost it all, He's enough. Afterward, I stood by the stage praying for people as they came up. Suddenly, someone from my family (my mom? Grandma?) came over and said, 'Go to Grandpa.' I walked over to Grandpa, still seated. The man whom I had loved and admired, who embodied integrity and character, sat broken before me, weeping. He couldn't communicate anything; he just wept. I quickly asked the Lord for wisdom, knelt down, and took his hand. Then I prayed. I prayed one more prayer on top of the nearly 50 years of prayer that had come before for this man. I prayed whatever the Spirit put in me to pray. And as I prayed, I had the deep impression that walls were being ripped apart in Grandpa's heart, that the remaining pieces of resistance and pride and sin were being ejected from his body in that moment by the power of God. This was a new man.

And this old Irishman had enough in him to make a request a few weeks later. Grandpa told Grandma he wanted to be baptized. Grandma called the pastor over to their house, and he and Grandpa talked through what baptism meant, what he would be declaring by going through it, and ensured he understood all the points. Grandpa assured this young man that he understood, and he was ready to do it. He wanted people to know what had happened in his heart.

As loving and determined as ever, I made the 4-hour trek to my hometown, to my home church, and I witnessed Grandpa get baptized in the same pool where I once was baptized. And as he rose from the water, he turned and faced the congregation, clasped his hands over his head and shook them. He couldn't say the words, but the sentiment was obvious:

'VICTORY!'