Remembering Jean Coleman

Remembering Jean Coleman

April 4, 1932 to December 11, 2013

Mom loved lighthouses.  My great-great grandmother and grandfather were lighthouse keepers at Price’s Creek lighthouse near Southport, North Carolina.  She has prints of lighthouses, and little figurines replicas of lighthouses along the eastern coast.  I believe it was beautiful imagery of who she was.  A lighthouse shows the way to safety in the dark and dangerous waters, and if we follow the light, keeps us from crashing into the rocks until we complete the journey.  

When Mom passed away last Wednesday, it was the end of a long and difficult journey.  As most of you know she fought this battle with cancer since 2006, enduring surgeries that would have taken most of us out.  How did she do this and keep such obvious joy and love for her Lord and in her heart?  How did she manage to stay concerned for others even until her last hours?  Why wasn’t she bitter and angry about her situation?  After all, she devoted her entire life to God’s service.  Why wasn’t she demanding to know where her earthly reward was?   How could she show so much joy, and lift others up, and delight others, and make everyone feel loved and welcome?  Was she just faking it?

Mom’s life didn’t start easily.  She was born in Miami, Florida in 1932 and her father left when she was a baby.  She moved from city to city during her childhood and teenage years.  She attended 11 schools between first grade and high school graduation.  She lived with her grandparents for some time.  She didn’t have any real anchors or mentors in her family life, especially spiritual ones.  She remembered life being a mess and always having to find new friends.  If anybody had reason to live life badly and blame her circumstances it would have been her.

In high school she attended church and accepted Jesus Christ as her savior.  She found the anchor that would be with her wherever she went in life.  She decided she wanted to marry a man who wanted to be a missionary, and when she met my Dad that was one of the things that drew them to each other.  She grew to love the Lord with all her heart, and together they left for Brazil in 1962 on board a ship from New Orleans.  They spent a year in language school studying Portuguese, and then moved to the northeast of Brazil in a small city called Garanhuns.  Dad worked with people in extreme poverty and taught them how to grow gardens, raise a small herd of cows, and about nutrition.  Mom immersed herself in children's activities by teaching Sunday School and holding countless fun and educational times with groups of kids.   This week we have heard over and over from her former students who recalled that special combination of snack time and study time.  Mom had a natural gift to create special moments with food and activities.  It wasn’t just eating and drawing on paper, it was an social event!  It had to have stories, and she always added some kind of flourish to whatever food she served, even if it was just a snack.  She made the ordinary special, and she made every guest feel like they were kings and queens in her home.  When she hugged you, it was the most warm, enveloping and loving and accepting hug you have ever felt.  Even this year, at 81 and in the fight of her life, if you visited her and she served you juice and crackers, she would whip up a special blend of fruit and juices in her blender, pour them in to glass glasses, put the glasses on a tray, and arrange the crackers just so on pretty napkins.  It wasn’t just “Would you like something to drink.”   It was an occasion!  It was her way of showing love and making you feel special.  It never got old.

In 1964 she lost a newborn son, Stephen Olin Coleman, due to a completely avoidable medical error.  There was a military coup that took over the government, and tensions were very high for foreigners.  She was far from family and anything familiar culturally, and she understandably struggled for a time with depression.  Dad survived a very serious case of diphtheria, and she nursed him back to health.  With each challenge, she drew herself closer to Christ and emerged stronger.  

In 1975 we moved to the Amazon to create a program similar to the one Dad had developed in the Northeast of Brazil  We lived in the town of Altamira, on the banks of the Xingu river.  The next town over in each direction was over 300 miles on the dirt trans-amazon highway.  Life was hard, hot, dusty, filled with disease, lacking in the normal comforts of life, and lacking in medical facilities. Everything that had to be done was 10 times harder than it was in normal places.  She had to go to the market and buy rice and beans out of a pile on the ground, then bring them home and sort through it all and get out rocks, bugs, twigs, and whatever else found its way in there before it could be cooked.  She had to get meat from the meat market, where cows hung on hooks out in the open, and french bread from the bread store that lasted exactly one day before you could use it as a baseball bat.  Water and milk had to be boiled on the stove before we could drink it.  Life was tiring, and it took a physical toll on both my parents.   Dad was attacked and gored by a bull, breaking ribs and bones and pulling his shoulder out of the socket, and there was a long recovery period.  Death was always close by in the Amazon.  We had friends who lost their lives from disease and accidents, and we all got to see more misery up close than most people get to see in a lifetime.  Both of them lost so much weight that when we look at pictures of them after their return from the Amazon in 1981 we are still shocked.

So let’s review.  We have a lady who had a rough childhood, lost a son, lived through a military coup, almost lost her husband twice, had to take 3 showers a day because it was so hot and dirty, was far from family, and all of her kids were off at boarding school.  She later lost my Dad to cancer, and then for 6 years had one of the most brutal forms of cancer I’ve ever seen.  Why on earth was this a joyful lady, and how on earth could she have an abundance of joy to give?

We know the answer.  She had joy because God shines brightest through the most broken.  She had joy because every day she lived for Him, and to serve Him, and to show others what His love could do for your heart and soul.  The harder life was, and the more broken her body became, the more she immersed herself in the reading of His word, the singing of hymns even at home, and the reading of devotions.   His loved just flowed through her out to us.   She was a lens through which we saw His love, and that lens became clearer the worse things got. 

The majority of us are pretty good at faking how we feel sometimes.  There isn’t one of us here who, when asked “How are you”, have said “I’m fine” when we really aren’t fine.  We have a shell that we sometimes work hard to keep intact so that others see us as we would like them to see us.  We won’t want to be a burden, or we don’t like some traits or feelings we have, and so we cover it up and put on the game face.   But when life breaks down, and our bodies start to break down, our true nature starts to break through.  We can’t keep up the facade.  The shell is eventually shattered, and the true nature is all that’s left.  Everyone who knew her knew that the more her body broke down, and the harder it was to talk and eat, and the worse she felt, the more God’s character shone through her.  She was more beautiful than ever.  You could see it in her eyes and in that smile even as it got more crooked.  As her outer shell shattered, we were able to see her heart ever more clearly and it was inspiring and a testament to God’s work in her life and her true character.  

She looked even more urgently for ways to be of service to him.  At 80 years old she was driving and picked up a lady who was walking with difficulty in her neighborhood and brought her to her house to befriend her and make sure she was ok.  We were alarmed and cautioned her against doing such dangerous things.  She laughed and said “I’m 80 years old, she needs to hear the gospel, and if she knocks me over I’ve lived a full life.”  Waitresses and waiters all over town knew her by name.  Every time we went somewhere to eat (and she often had to take her own food because of her special diet), she would leave a daily devotional with a hand-written note inside it personally addressed, and the tip for the meal was inside all that.  So if they wanted the tip, they had to see the sweet note thanking them for their service and encouraging them to try out the daily devotional.   She kept long lists of people to pray for, and when she was in pain she would pull it out and pray for other people because, she said, it took her mind off her own problems.  It was great to be on her prayer list, because she earnestly and truly prayed for you often.  Her gentle joy and persistent example and witness led many people to Christ over the years.    God took a lady with a broken childhood and a difficult life and channeled joy, hope, and peace to others through it.  What a great example for all of us that knew and loved her.

So what do we do with this story and with her life?  Do we look at it like a work of art and admire it?  I would like to suggest that the best way to honor Mom’s memory is to live what she lived for.  Now it’s our turn.  It doesn't matter if you came from a great family or a broken family.  It is our responsibility in each generation to neither blame our bad parents nor to coast on the heritage of great ones.   Each one of us can be the light that she was by loving God like she did.  Let’s understand what made her that way.  Let’s seek out the truth.  Let’s love unconditionally. Let’s love the broken.  Let’s look for how we can sacrifice to help and love others.   We can understand that even if we are broken that He works even better in us.  Nobody could ever say of mom “Oh, of course she loved God.  She grew up in a Christian household and had a great life.  So would I!”  We can feel that joy and fulfillment that she felt, and we won’t be bitter and angry when things don’t go our way., and we will be a joy and encouragement to others.   We will because we will be doing these things not for our own glory, but for His.

And so, just as I did when Dad passed away, I say to Matthew, Emily, Mary, Caroline, Miriam, Christina, Samuel, Aiden, Kayleigh, Ryhlee, and Cooper:  If you want to know what she was like, study the fruit of her life, which was the fruit of the spirit.  You will see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Let’s be like her, and let’s look forward to her awesome hug that will be waiting for us in heaven.  We saw her beautiful sunset.  Now let’s join her for the perfect sunrise, and smile next time we see a lighthouse.  I know we all can’t wait to see her there.