Covenant Stories: Lillian's Eyes

.Story #16 in the Covenant series

My third daughter was born on the last day of 1996. Having had two children already, we were feeling very relaxed and at ease, so we named her Lillian. We were thinking of the famous passage in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus urged his followers not to be consumed with worry.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. Matthew 6:28-29 .

I’ve often felt it was a blessing that we named her Lillian, because within two months of her birth it was obvious something was wrong with her eyes. The doctor told us she had Strabismus, a condition that was once called “lazy eye.” There is a small window of time, early in life, where our eyes learn to work together. For whatever reason, Lillian missed that window of opportunity. Surgery and glasses might help her look straight ahead, but her eyes would never work together to produce a three-dimensional view of the world.

About that same time Jeanene and I had become convinced that Covenant Baptist Church was never going to grow large enough to be able to afford a building. We loved Covenant, but we simply didn’t have enough people to pay for something like that.

We were in a bind. People in our culture are accustomed to attending churches that have a permanent home. Right or wrong, that is the expectation. Without a building it can be hard to attract people. But without people, you can’t pay for a building. We didn’t mind Covenant being small, but we now had three children, and we needed more money than Covenant could pay us.

We didn’t want to alarm the church, but privately we decided that if something drastic didn’t happen within a year, we would look for ministry positions elsewhere. The thought of leaving Covenant was heartbreaking, but we didn’t see any other options.

Eight months later the time for Lillian’s first surgery was approaching. A local pediatrician, Dr. Wayne Grant, was a friend of my parents and had known me since I was a small boy. I asked Wayne if we could meet for lunch to discuss Lillian’s situation. Jeanene and I had some big decisions to make about her eyes, and I thought it would be nice to hear Wayne’s thoughts on the matter.

We talked about Lillian’s upcoming surgery, and Wayne set my mind at ease about a few things. He said the risk of the surgery was low, while the chance of the surgery helping her eyes was very good.

And then the conversation took a surprising turn. Wayne asked how the church was doing. I told him about our church. I admitted that we were a little unconventional, but only because we were committed to doing things the way that seemed right to us without regard for what was traditional among Baptists. Eventually the conversation turned toward our land and desire for our own building.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure if we can grow large enough to afford a building. We’re trying not to worry about numbers, but there are some undeniable mathematics involved here.”

After a few moments of silence, Wayne said, “This may turn out to be a VERY fortuitous meeting.”

Wayne was a member of Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, a large and influential church. He was also chairman of their missions committee.

“We just had an important long-range planning meeting, evaluating the vision of our congregation. We’re landlocked. We can’t buy any more property, so we can’t grow. One option would be to sell the property and relocate. But we’ve decided that we would rather find new churches in other parts of our city and help them grow. We wouldn’t try to control them and influence them to become like our church. We’d just find churches that seem to be kindred spirits and give them assistance, allowing them to grow as the Spirit leads them.”

“And your church sounds exactly like the kind of church we would like to help.”

A few times in life you will have a conversation with someone that changes everything. You leave the conversation and your life is changed forever. It is no exaggeration to say that my conversation with Wayne that afternoon changed our church’s history. When I walked into the restaurant to meet Wayne, I had just about given up on Covenant and was fully expecting to leave. I had already started thinking about what I would say to the church on my last Sunday. When I walked out after our lunch, all thoughts of leaving Covenant were gone.

A few months later, Trinity Baptist Church agreed to sponsor our new congregation. Their building committee – made up of members who were construction managers and other professionals in that field - would provide oversight for our process. One of the men on the committee agreed to be our general contractor. And when we were ready to build, Trinity would provide generous monthly assistance for 3 years until we could afford to make our mortgage payment ourselves.

It happened so fast. After years of working and worrying and trying to grow by ourselves, suddenly it was a done deal. We were going to have a place to worship of our own.

Isn’t it interesting how it all unfolded? I’ve thought about this a lot over the years. I don’t think that God impaired Lillian’s vision in order to arrange a meeting between two churches. Of course, I’m not in the business of deciding how God does or doesn’t work. But if you ask me, I’d say that God works through people who cooperate with others in generosity and compassion. Wayne gave his professional knowledge to help my little girl. And his church gave their resources to help our little church.

That’s how the miracle took place. But however you want to think about it, one thing is clearly true: Covenant Baptist Church exists today because of Lillian’s eyes and Trinity Baptist Church’s vision.

Lillian a few years later, after surgery.

Gordon Atkinson

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