Straight Paths Love Moves First

Love Moves First

Loren Hardin

For The Ashland Beacon

             This is part three of this series about Vannen and his wife Eleanor.  Vannen was a master mechanic and taught automotive technology at the Pike and Pickaway-Ross vocational schools. According to Eleanor, “Vannen could fix anything. He never got excited. He thought things through. About two months after we both got saved, Vannen asked me, ‘How would you feel about going down to the church at Eifort?’ I asked Vannen, ‘Why would you want to do that?’  He said, ‘Well, the church here in Oak Hill has plenty of help, but the church at Eifort doesn’t have much help.’ It wasn’t long before Vannen became deacon at the church at Eifort. He maintained the building and oversaw the building projects. He even filled in and taught when the pastor was out.” 

             Vannen enrolled in hospice care at the age of seventy-three with end stage Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, a devastating combination. Eleanor reported, “He’s going downhill. I think he’s having seizures. He’s always moving his hands like he’s working on something, like he’s working on cars in his dreams. I could hardly believe he hugged me the other day; it was the first time in a year. He still puckers up for a kiss sometimes. I just realized he doesn’t know who I am anymore.  He knows I’m someone close to him, but he doesn’t know that I’m his wife.”

             Eleanor reflected upon their marriage, “Vannen was always the first. When Vannen and I would be having a fuss, like married couples do, he would always be the first to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ He would even say he was sorry when he wasn’t the one who was in the wrong, because he always wanted to get back on good terms as soon as possible.”  Eleanor confessed, “I always had a hard time saying, ‘I’m sorry.’  I don’t know why; I just did. I may have been a little stubborn. But someone has to make the first move.  It always seemed easier for Vannen.” 

            A few days ago, my wife, Susie, and I were “having a fuss like married couples do”. Susie and I had plans to go to our camp that morning, but I climbed into my truck and drove away. While waiting in the drive-thru line at Tim Horton’s, the lyrics of a Travis Tritt song came to mind, “The stubborn souls are the losers…chalk another heartbreak up to foolish pride.” Then Vannen’s story came to mind. Then that “still, small voice” of God (1 Kings 19:11-13), “Are you willing to make the first move. Are you willing to be the first to say you’re sorry’?” Realizing that Jesus is “The author and finisher of our faith,” (Hebrews 12:2), that the pen is in His hand, I called Susie and told her, “I just picked up a cup of coffee for you and I’m on my way back to pick you up. I want you to go with me.” Susie replied, “I was just praying that you would come back”. Being more like Eleanor than Vannen, it was one of the hardest U-turns I’ve ever made, but I’m sure glad I did.   

             Vannen’s willingness to make the first move reminds me of God’s love for me, for us, depicted in the following song by Casting Crowns: “This is the story of a runaway with no way home and no way out. I threw the best of me away, I had my chance, it’s too late now. Too far gone and too ashamed to think that you’d still know my name, but love refused to let my story end that way… What kind of grace, relentless grace, would chase this rebel down, crawl into this prisoner’s cage, take my hand and pull me out. You knew I couldn’t make the change, so you became the change in me. And now I live to tell the story of the God who rescues. You didn’t wait for me to find my way to You. I couldn’t cross that distance even if I wanted to. You came running after me when anybody else would have turned and left me at my worst. Love moved first,” (“Loved Moved First”, by Casting Crowns). 

             “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us…. We love Him because He first loved us,” (1 John 4:10-19). 

              Loren Hardin was a social worker with SOMC-Hospice for twenty-nine years. He can be reached at 740.357.6091 or at lorenhardin53@gmail.com. You can order Loren's book, "Straight Paths: Insights for living from those who have finished the course” at Amazon.