The One Thing He Didn’t Want to Lose

[Timl1980]

A few weeks ago, a bible student in our congregation reached a milestone. After studying for some time, he was announced at our midweek meeting as an unbaptized publisher. It was one of those moments where all of our hearts were bursting with joy...because you know how much effort it took this precious man to get there.

After the meeting, my wife and I went up to congratulate him. We told him how proud we were of him, how encouraging it was to see his progress. He thanked me, and then I asked him something I always ask new ones.

“May I ask, was there anything in particular that helped you the most in your study so far?”

He thought for a second, smiled, and said something that sounded almost too simple...and yet...after I thought about it on the way home...it was absolutely profound.

“Once I realized Jehovah was really listening, I didn’t want to stop talking to him.”

That was it. No long explanation. No dramatic story. Just that.

 

And the more I thought about it, the more it stayed with me.

 

Then...the other day...I was speaking to a brother on the phone who is still incarcerated...and as we were recalling our days in there together...he started chuckling and asked me if I remembered Willie.

Immediately I started laughing as my mind conjured up a picture of the elderly gentleman he was speaking of...and yet, it wasn't until later that day that I started REALLY thinking of Willie...and suddenly a connection formed in my mind between Willie and our newest publisher.

You see, Willie hadn’t taken care of himself for most of his life, and by the time he ended up in prison, the dentist had some hard news for him. Years of neglect meant tooth after tooth had to be pulled. Eventually, there was only one left...a single front tooth that jutted out at an awkward angle from his top gums. It looked crazy when he smiled...because it was large and square, looking like a white piece of Chiclet gum protruding from his gums.

When the dentist said it should come out too, Willie shook his head defiantly. “No,” he said. “Not that one.”

They offered him a full set of dentures. It would’ve looked better. Everyone knew it. But Willie refused. He agreed to partials that fit around that one tooth, even though it looked a little odd. And from that day on, Willie took care of that tooth like his life depended on it. He carefully flossed it, brushed carefully, avoided hard food, and smiled with his whole mouth open...proud to show it off. (And yes, he even saved up his money and would buy a whitening kit for it once in a while😅) Whenever someone joked about it, (and they did, often) Willie just grinned and said, “I never took care of much of anything in my life...so I figured I'd start trying now.”

You see...for Willie, it wasn’t about how it looked. It was about not losing everything.

 

And then it hit me...Drew and Willie were really doing the same thing. They weren’t fixing everything, and they weren’t acting like they had it all figured out. They were just guarding the one thing that still felt real and alive to them. 

The Bible puts it this way at Proverbs 4:23:
“Above all the things that you guard, safeguard your heart.”

The Hebrew word for “guard” there means to watch over something fragile...something that won’t survive without care.

For Willie, it was one tooth. For Drew, it was prayer. For many of us, it might be something just as small...just as fragile...and yet, it's something we will simply NEVER let go of.

And Jehovah sees that. He doesn’t ask for perfection. He just asks us not to let go of what’s alive.

And sometimes, that’s enough to begin again.

[Dolce vita]

“Once I realized Jehovah was really listening, I didn’t want to stop talking to him.”

 

Thank you, Tim. 

This sentence is beautiful and reminds me of a brother's testimony (found in a video, but I can't remember which one) who explains that, for him, prayer is like an addiction, that he doesn't want to take a step, so to speak, without first talking to Jehovah about it. He is right, Jesus must have done that too.

 

This portrait of Willie, with its comic touches, is infinitely tender. It makes you want to have a Willie around, at least the Willie who takes care of his one tooth, almost useless in the eyes of others, even unsightly, but a true marker of vitality for him.

 

 

I don't know if he's still alive. If not, I hope we'll meet him one day, all focused on his healing and his originality.

 

 

 

[dljbsp]

That phrase in Proverbs 4:23 has stayed with me — “for out of it are the sources of life.”

 

I keep thinking about that word “sources.” It simply reminds me that what’s inside us feeds everything else. And that’s part of why guarding the heart matters so much. If what’s alive there is cared for, life keeps moving.

 

Your illustration already captured that in a beautiful way. It just made me reflect a little more on how much can still flow from something that’s carefully guarded.

[Dré]

3 hours ago, Dolce vita said:

“Once I realized Jehovah was really listening, I didn’t want to stop talking to him.”

 

This sentence is beautiful and reminds me of a brother's testimony (found in a video, but I can't remember which one) who explains that, for him, prayer is like an addiction, that he doesn't want to take a step, so to speak, without first talking to Jehovah about it. He is right, Jesus must have done that too.

 

Claudius Johnson: I Am Devoted to Prayer

https://www.jw.org/finder?srcid=share&wtlocale=E&lank=pub-jwb_202103_5_VIDEO&ts=00:03:43-00:03:49

 

Quote

And that’s why I say that I am a slave to prayer. It’s the most important thing in my life.

 

Claudius Johnson: La prière, c’est toute ma vie.

https://www.jw.org/finder?srcid=share&wtlocale=F&lank=pub-jwb_202103_5_VIDEO&ts=00:03:43-00:03:49

 

Quote

C’est pour ça que j’aime dire que je suis accro à la prière. C’est la chose la plus importante dans ma vie.

 

[Timl1980]

4 hours ago, Dolce vita said:

I don't know if he's still alive. If not, I hope we'll meet him one day, all focused on his healing and his originality.

 

Unfortunately he's not, but I most definitely agree, I look forward to seeing him again in the new system!