BGAV President's Column

by Ron Gravatt

Summer. 1951. An unaccompanied four-year-old, not having found any of the neighborhood kids to play with, was crossing Hanover Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, in order to return to his apartment home. He stepped into the street, and then, remembering the admonition to “look both ways before crossing the street,” looked to his right, and, still moving, started to look to his left when he was struck by a car turning the corner…

Winter. 1955. A seven-year-old is taking an evening bath. In front of him on a small ledge, there is a natural gas water heater. The flame in the water heater suddenly goes out, but the gas continues to flow. The boy’s lungs fill with gas, and soon, they stop functioning at all…

Spring. 1964. A seventeen-year-old, accompanied by a fellow worker, is returning home along a four-lane divided highway after a half-day shift at a fast-food restaurant. In the westbound lane, a car also with two occupants, swerves for some reason, crosses the median strip, is suddenly in both eastbound lanes, perpendicular to the traffic, and is moving toward the first car— sideways. The force of the impact snaps the motor-mounts and sends the engine into the fire-wall, cracking it. Three of the four are hospitalized…

Fall. 1971. New job. Rushing back to work. Traveling west at 60 mph in a 50 mph zone. The right front tire drifts off to the shoulder, hits a low spot at a turnoff where other vehicles have worn down the lime-rock and sends the car sideways down the two-lane highway. Upon impact, a 14x14-inch bridge corner post of steel-reinforced concrete is pitched down an embankment before the car comes to rest…

Near the Richmond cemetery plot where several members of the generation of my maternal grandparents are buried, there is a tombstone of a child who died at the age of three. He and I were born on exactly the same date, 28 March 1947. As the survivor of all four life-threatening scenarios described above, I have outlived him by seven decades. But why, exactly, have I done so?

During this pandemic many have asked, especially upon losing loved ones, “Why, Lord, were they not spared?”

I have often asked the affirmative form of that very question, “Why, Lord, have I been spared?” And, frankly, I do not know.

What I do know is that, like Job, I was not present at the creation of all things; that God’s ways are not always our ways; that he sees a much grander picture for his children; and that “all things work together for good to them that love God.” My conviction is that all Christians have purpose, reasons for being who, what, and where we are.

The Old Testament prophets repeatedly called for meeting the needs of widows, orphans, and aliens. Downward economic spirals, the epidemic, the cessation of a 20-year-long war, and growing political strife have created many more of these. So, pause a moment to thank God for all that you have and are, ask him for the power to see what and whom you have not seen before, step out in faith, and begin anew to love and serve the ones Jesus called “the least of these my brethren.”

While we do not claim to have all the answers or resources at our disposal, the BGAV staff and officers stand ready to assist you and your church anywhere along your path of service. May God bless you as you seek his will as your purpose in life!

Ron Gravatt is the 2022 BGAV President.