One of my best friends from Michigan phoned the other day with the news of the birth of their third child. He was my college roommate and probably the first young Christian man that I met, that wasn’t pompous or condescending when he spoke to me about his relationship with Jesus.
Gene incorporated his everyday life with his faith (the early vision for Transparent Christian Magazine perhaps?). He was bold and would stand up for injustice, knew how to throw a punch, and even though he had his struggles, he went to God in the good times and when life got turned upside down. Gene was comfortable with his faith and himself.
I found out years later that he and my future wife had made a promise to each other to pray for me… Pray that I would develop a relationship with Jesus. I’ll still never forget the look of surprised (shocked) joy in his eyes when I told him I had been on my face one evening asking God to come into my life… Anyway that testimony will be in a future issue of Transparent, I want to get back to the phone call.
Him: “Jason, I wanted to let you know that earlier today, Michelle had the baby!”
Me: “Dude!!! Congrats! Everything alright?”
Him: “Everything’s great. Mom and the baby are healthy, 10 fingers and 10 toes”.
Me: “Awesome. What’s the name?”
Him: “Zachariah Jay”.
Me: “I like it”.
Him: “You know where the ‘Jay’ came from?”
Me: (pausing) “Umm… Noo?”
Him: “We named him after you”.
Me: (Can’t talk)
Him: (Can’t talk either)
I have been smiling about this for 2 weeks now. It’s a pretty humbling experience to have someone name their child after you. In a month where I have felt totally overwhelmed with all of my family-work-health-financial responsibilities, the blessing of having a namesake, and the miracle of his birth have given me a strange sense of peace and realigned my focus.
Congratulations Gene and Michelle, and welcome to the world Zacharia! (Your parents have made a huge impact in my life and I’m looking forward to being a part of yours.)
Love,
Jason
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April 27th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Leave it to the two guys to end the conversation in silence. Here’s the end of the conversation from the never shutting up wife of Gene:
Jay, we knew you long before you became a Christian. And you have this amazing gift of sales. That gift trickles into so many other aspects of life, and can be used as a thousand people do to present their lives as sales pitch of everything being perfect, even when it’s not. Then you became a Christian, and life got hard – really hard. And you have learned to strive to not put on your sales face before God and the outside world, but to be transparent. Our prayer for our little man is that he learns to live his life this way – passionate about his creator, and transparent – completely real before God and man that people will see his creator through his life; just like his namesake. We’re constantly praising God for the works He’s done in your life, and praying that our son will live a life worthy of his name!
April 27th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
I’m so happy for all of you!
April 27th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
What an awesome tribute!! After reading what Margie wrote…I am all teary eyed over here.
April 27th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
I’m sorry…….I meant to say, “after reading what MICHELLE wrote…”!
April 27th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
I started and stopped and started again to respond but I’m not the word smith…There are only a few people in a life time that truly make an impression on your heart and even though we don’t talk enough or keep in touch as we should two things will never be questioned. First, I love you for who God has made you to be and what a priviledge it is to watch you grow! And second, I thank God for bringing Jason Curtis Elkins into my life as I am a better person for it!
April 28th, 2009 at 12:36 am
Do you really have to make me cry every time you write an article?!
April 28th, 2009 at 1:09 am
@Callie – I know… This one got to me too, sorry about that. This is intensely personal stuff, sometimes I wonder why I feel led to share it in such a public format.
Gene and Michelle – Love you guys. Looking forward to meeting “Z.J.” (That’s my new nickname for him).
Margie and Sandy – you are both very sweet, thanks for reading!!