The saying goes that pictures are worth a thousand words. This one to me is priceless. This picture was taken this past Christmas with my family and as you can see, it is a big one. Besides my two boys, there are only 3 people in this picture that I’m related to by blood…but they are all family none the less. When I received a copy of this picture after that day so many thoughts and feelings came flooding to my mind. This is the story of those feelings and the man at the center of this picture. His name is Frank Gentry and he’s a pastor. What many of you may not know is that I was named after him. And today’s his birthday…but more about that in a moment.
What struck me first was that everyone in this picture, save 3 spouses that each chose to marry into this craziness, I have known my entire life. And all of the young children I have known the entirety of their short lives. And no matter how hard we try, none of us can make girls. That’s 8 boys on the front row. We have had Christmas together just about every year I’ve been alive. We’ve been through a lot together. Sickness, death, fires, marriages, children…we’ve seen a bit of everything over the years. Sometimes when you lose a lot you look around and also see the things that remain in a new light. I’m sure my parents look back and reflect on how they raised me and my sister and wonder if it was enough. Wondering if they had done anything differently if anything would change. I do the same thing with my two sons. Looking back I see the great gift they gave us in connecting these three families. I lost a lot over the past 2 years. If truth be told, it’s felt like a rug was ripped out from under my feet. But I landed on two feet, and when I looked around these people were all still there. With some of them I had long talks. One of them was there from the very beginning…the very first person I went to. Having something like that…a family of friends that is there even when you don’t know you are going to need them…that is beyond priceless. Even now I struggle to put into words what it means. I know how incredibly blessed I am that my mom and dad took the time to connect with friends and turn us into an extended family.
It is always chaos when you try to get this many people together to take a picture. We had zero organization nor plan and it shows in such a beautiful way. We are all jumbled together, all the families mixed up, in a blended mess. And immediately when I looked at the main picture the first thing I noticed was the man at the center of it all, Pastor Frank Gentry. I smiled and grinned because it couldn’t have been more perfect if we had planned it that way all along. My middle name is Franklin and my parents chose to give me that name after him. He was a center piece of my life from birth until the age of 17. He was the only pastor I knew all that time. It’s hard to put in words what that means. I know that one of the reasons the three of our families connected as we did was because they came together under the leadership of this man of faith. It’s fitting that he ended up in the center of us all.
I’ve reflected on this a bit since Christmas. All of this has been inside me for a while and has just taken some time to get out. When I went to our party that day I didn’t even know that Frank and his wife Betty were going to be there. It was a truly pleasant suprise. I’ve known a lot of pastors in my day, with many of my friends from college and seminary following that same path. I imagine when you spend your life working in ministry as Pastor Frank has it would be natural to look back and wonder about the legacy you left behind with all the long hours, the tears, the heartache, and I’m sure a fair amount of pain and irritation put in across the years. My earliest memory of Pastor Frank is of him talking to me as a child in the voice of Donald Duck. He was good at it and I loved it. All of us kids did. It let me know that the figure that most represented God in my life after my dad was safe and fun. See much of what we learn early in our faith formation comes from our relationships with our fathers and then also with those faith figures in our lives. Pastor Frank was a rock of a faith figure. My image of God was informed and built upon what I saw in my pastor. My second memory is of his wife, Betty. We shared the same birthday and I can remember her sharing that day with me. Every time our special days fell on a Wednesday or Sunday there would be a special reception and cake for her. She always made sure that it was shared with me, pretending that it was for us both. I was always made to feel important and special and I remember it to this day.
Frank, I’m not sure if you’ve ever questioned what it was all worth or what impact you truly had over the years. That day in December you and I crossed paths as we were both walking to our cars. I had my kids presents to load up before the drive back to Raleigh. I have no other way to explain it except that as I walked past you God hit me with a fullness of what your presence meant in my own life. Your being there for 17 years of my life shaped what I thought and believed about God. God used it to form me. I’ve gotten the question a couple of times about how while going through what I’ve gone through over the past couple of years I’ve been able to never question where God was in the middle of it, why he let it happen, but always found Him wherever I turned. That day I caught a little glimpse of why that is the case although I’m not sure I can adequately put it into words. You were at Greenville First for 20 years as pastor….I was there for 17 of those. What I learned about God through you being there without even consciously knowing it was just that, God is always there. He doesn’t come and go with the tides. He doesn’t disappear in the bad times and he’s not only there when things go well or our way. I know you must have delivered untold number of sermons over that period, and I wish that I could say that I remembered one of them. But your impact, the seeds you sowed, they’ve sprouted in the past two years in my life. I’m not sure you could know when they would sprout or even that you had planted them, but part of the reason I’m standing as I am today is because of who you were and the simple and profound presence that you were until I went off to college. It’s such a model of who God is and he showed me that day in December just a glimpse of how and why I have that view of Him. Presence speaks volumes, so much more than words and probably without knowing it or realizing it, your presence modeled His presence to us all. Today is your birthday…and I just wanted to say thanks. Thanks for staying when you probably wanted to go. Thanks for not giving up. Thanks for choosing to love and trying to teach us about the God you knew. Thanks for teaching a young boy that God’s always there even when everything falls apart. I think it’s important that you know that you did a really great job. You have to look no further than this picture to start to get a small glimpse of the numbers you’ve impacted. We were just 3 small families, and you impacted so many more. My parents thank you. My children thank you. All the families in our little band of love thank you. Happy birthday Frank Gentry. I’m proud to share your name.
From The Whale's Belly 