Black History Month: Reflecting on a Bedside Blessing

Grandma B was a member of the church that I pastored in Miami. She was full of life and the Holy Ghost, but mostly the Holy Ghost. I loved preaching when she was in the congregation, which was most Sundays, because the love of Christ emanated from her like she was a glow bug whose switch was stuck in the "On" position.

Grandma, as she insisted that I call her, was from Jamaica. On some Sundays when the Spirit was just too much for her to contain, particularly at the end of a service, she would break out and dance down the aisle reaching out for anyone who would to join her. Her joy was infectious. I once remarked to her that it would take an exceptionally powerful anointing of God's Spirit to get me, a middle-aged white guy, to break out in dance on the floor of any Baptist church. She prayed for that day to come.

Sometime before the end of my tenure at that church, Grandma became ill with cancer. On a day about two weeks before her death, I visited her at her home. A number of her extended family members, several of whom were also church members, were gathered at her bedside. As I recall, she was covered with a quilt even though the temperatures of south Florida were quite warm on that particular day. She beckoned me to her left side and reached out her hand for me to hold. "Now, let me bless you," she said, and she prayed for me, her pastor. That's supposed to be the other way around.

I honestly can't remember the specifics of the blessing that she prayed for me. I only know that as I walked out the door to get into my truck, I cried . . . because a beautiful child of God had indeed blessed me.

What I mean to say here is simply this. Black History Month is not sterile and academic. For me, it's personal. I am blessed beyond measure by the my black friends whom God has stitched into my story. To paraphrase Jesus, these friends have "given to me, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over."

Ray