This Was My Uncle’s Car

In late April of this year, a man ran into my car, and his insurance finally decided that my car was totaled.  We settled on a price for it, and their wrecker finally came to tow away my little white Corolla.

And then the memories began.  My car belonged to my Uncle Will, who died in 2014, one month and eight days after my mom died.  He was a travel nurse, never married, who was staying in a tiny hotel in North Carolina near his job.  He was in the shower and collapsed with a heart attack.  He’d just started trying to get himself in shape and was going to the gym and making an effort to lose weight when he died.  It was too little, too late.  Unbeknownst to me, he’d told his sister that he was having chest pains, but he wouldn’t see a doctor. He was afraid of having the terrifically painful bypass surgery that he’d had years before and said he’d rather die than that.  He was often negative and didn’t think that maybe all he needed was a stent.

We didn’t always have a good relationship.  Most of his life was spent shuffling through jobs.  He would have high hopes, then reality would dash them.  He confessed years later to having panic attacks and finally just quitting.  He would take his stress out on my brother and myself with either whippings or bitterly sarcastic jibes.  When we were adults, he apologized for anything wrong he did in our upbringing.  He said, “I didn’t know there was a better way.”

But he added a lot of goodness to our lives, as well.  He spent many summer suns throwing us down our version of a slip n slide.  He took us to New Orleans to see sites.  He helped my brother practice baseball and found a camp for him to go to.  He could deliver praise as well as criticism.  He spent a lot of time teaching me to drive and was the giver of thoughtful gifts.  He helped many down and out people.

I began to tear up as the tow truck driver was about to take away my car.  You see, I don’t think my uncle was saved.  The Bible says, “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.”  (Romans 10:9-10)  My uncle was baptized at the age of 15, but I talked with him multiple times, and he didn’t seem to have faith.  The last time I saw him, I asked him, “Do you think Jesus is the Son of God?”

He said, “I believe he’s the son of God.”

I asked, “Do you believe he’s God?”

He looked pained.  “I don’t know.”

He’d told me that he had trouble believing in the resurrection.  I believe the Bible.  Our sins separate us from a holy God.  Christ died to build a bridge back to God, to give us a covering for our sins.  The Bible says that it takes the shedding of blood for forgiveness of sin.  That is the nature of sin.  (Hebrews 9:22)  As the nature of fire is to burn, the nature of sin is to cause death.  (For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Romans 6:23)  For us to be able to come into the presence of a Holy God for eternity, the stains of our sins must be atoned for.  Christ lived a perfect life on earth and was the perfect sacrifice who died in our place.  If we put our faith in Him, realizing that we are sinners and need his blood to cleanse us, and we turn from sin to God, His death covers our sins.  But we have to have faith in Christ as God and in His resurrection.

So, as the car was pulled onto the tow truck, I thought that my uncle may be suffering now in a place without God’s presence.  Then I realized that there is one thing I could do.  I told the tow truck driver, “This was my uncle’s car.”  I told him that my uncle was dead.  Then I asked him, “Do you know the Lord?”

He assured me that he did.  He said that he knew he’d be forgiven when he died.  I told him about my uncle.  And now I’m telling you.  That was my uncle’s car.  One day he was driving it.  The next day he was gone.  What about you?  Have you put your faith in Christ?  Where will you spend eternity?

We never know how much time we’ll have.