A few months back, I believe it was March, I entered a post called Appalachian Memories, which highlighted some recent works created after a trip back “east of the Mississippi” to Blue Ridge, Georgia and east Tennessee. I made mention in that post that part of the trip was a “celebration of a life well lived”. That life was Donna’s aunt, Clara Lee Hooper. Clara Lee was one of the beautiful people that shined the “light of Christ” day after day as she lived her life there in the Appalachian Mountains of North Georgia. She left a legacy of life. She also left a hole in Donna and I’s life that will never be filled on this earth.
Clara Lee’s family ask if I could do some kind of artwork to honor her. Death comes uninvited and is always unplanned. Good photos of Clara Lee were scarce, and I found it difficult to create a portrait from what we had, but it was all we had. Due to the low-res nature of the images, I thought a charcoal would be the best approach to this. I have been experimenting with charcoal on gessoed Yupo paper, so this is the media I choose. I hope the end result is a likeness that honors her.
During the time I spent working with this charcoal piece, many thoughts ran through my head. The brevity of life has a way of burning off the unnecessary elements of our existence. My thoughts ran continually to the life Clara Lee is now living, in the presence of Christ. What does she see? Are there smells and crazy unseen colors? What’s it like to experience pure, unsullied Joy?
Then my thoughts would turn to my wife and Clara Lee’s children, husband and grandchildren. They are walking a bitter-sweet road of pain and joy. The pain, because as the apostle Paul says in I Corinthians 15:26, death is an enemy. Death rips those we love from our presence, altering life as we have known it. But the sweetness and joy come because Jesus defeated that enemy called death when He died and rose again. Jesus said that for those who die in Him, death is not the end. There is life, even if we die.
At the grave side of the brother of Mary and Martha, Lazarus, when Mary and Martha were grieving the passing of their brother, Jesus made a simple, short statement to Martha – “Your brother will rise again.”
Wow! That changes everything.
It’s like a crack of light in the thick, suffocating darkness. A ray of hope in the gut-wrenching grief that tries to drown out hope. And then Jesus continues, like the second swing of the hammer that is driving a nail deep into the wood:
He tells Martha – “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in Me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in Me and believes in Me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?” John 11:25-26
It’s not just that Jesus can “bring back to life” the dead, Jesus IS LIFE itself. Jesus has never lied (nor can He), never lost a battle, never seen a body He can’t raise. Jesus is Life.
At the risk of being redundant, that changes everything.
I will end this post with Donna’s words about her aunt Clara Lee:
“It does change everything!
But the here and now is so hard. We weep… but not as those that have no hope.
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 1 Thessalonians 4:13
“Everyone needs an Aunt Clara Lee” is something Steve and I said all the time. Every time she did something special, remembered something, or I received a phone call or text totally out of the blue to say she loved us.. She was so full of life, joy and love. She loved her Lord, family and friends with a love that comes from being loved and forgiven by Jesus Christ.
The hole she left will remain until we see her again face to face, when our Lord calls us home. Oh what a day of rejoicing that will be!
The reality is: the next breath is not promised to any of us. Let’s love as Christ loved, forgive as we have been forgiven and be about His business until He calls us home.”
