How Tim Tebow’s Dad Changed My Life

Sunday Meditation: The unlikely ways our lives are affected by other people.

Have you ever compared the front and back of an intricately hand-woven tapestry? One side defined, distinct, detailed. The other: Ribbly-scribbly. Stringy-wingy. An unkempt, unbridled bedelee-bop.

Life’s that way — especially when seen from the bedelee-bop side. Let me give you a personal example.

Robert Ramsey Tebow II attended the University of Florida in Gainesville in the late 1960s, just about the time I served as a Petty Officer in the world’s largest and cleanest nuclear Navy. No likely connection between our worlds; none expected.

Also attending UF was a young woman named Pamela Elaine Pemberton. No link between she and me, either. None anticipated. But there was a knit-one, purl-two stroke that eventually stitched together the lives of Pam and Bob: They married on June 12, 1971, just about the time I accepted Christ at a Sunday evening chapel service in Vietnam. (The Tebows had five children, including one named Tim. He attended UF and won the Heisman in 2007.)

During Bob Tebow’s time in Gainesville, his path criss-crossed with many people, including a young man with a sister named Crystal. Think of it as one of those apparently random weaves of color and fiber that occasionally takes place. Happenstance. You meet. Connect. Move on. The end. But Bob didn’t just meet and move on. He shared the gospel: Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures. He was buried. He rose on the third day and was seen by his followers.

The young man accepted this “Good News” and told his family. The end. But not quite. Crystal, the young man’s sister, went on to tell another friend, Cyndi, who was living in Lakeland at the time. Cyndi’s family moved to New Port Richey. In January of 1972, Cyndi shared a little booklet called “The Four Spiritual Laws” with a friend at her high school. I met Cyndi’s friend, Jo-Lynn, later that year during a church function. We married in 1975.

What’s the point?

In the grand scheme of things, to the casual observer, this looks like a less-than-significant series of non-events: Ribbly-scribbly. Stringy-wingy. I agree. To the untrained eye living on the tapestry’s messy side, yes. Mish-mosh. Bedelee-bop. But ponder, just for a moment, the other side. The side where the Grand Designer lives — where the "Master Weaver" does his work. He sees defined, distinct, details. All part of his wonderful plan.

What plan?

This one: Jesus dies. Three days later, he’s risen. Seen by his followers. They share what they’ve seen. Through the streets. Down the centuries. Until it gets to Bob Tebow. What if the Good News stops there? He doesn’t tell his young friend. Who doesn’t tell his sister. Who doesn’t tell Cyndi. Who doesn’t tell Jo-Lynn. Who doesn’t go to church. Who doesn’t meet me. The weave broken; the strands, undone.

What, then, happens to me? No story to tell. To you? No story to read. Instead, an endless, empty echo of what-might-have-beens.

Each of our moments: Twines, fibers, yarn; twisted, turned, knit. Lovely, inter-connected weave on one side; chaotic, loopy, multi-color, string-garden on the other.

In the first chapter of Matthew’s gospel is a list of people. Most don’t read it. Why bother? It’s just names. But each name represents a deeply personal story in the fabric of Christ’s lineage. Let me mention three, all women: Thamar, Rachab, and Ruth.

Thamar was involved in a complicated, controversial one-night stand with her dead husband’s father. (She posed as a prostitute and seduced him to get pregnant.) Rachab was a prostitute. Ruth was from Moab, a people born from the incestuous relationship between Lot and one of his daughters.

Seedy stories. Messy. Hardly the kind saintly folk talk about on Sunday morn. Yet God masterfully makes these messy stories neatly fit into the overall composition. What strand might you be? What loop? What twist? How might you fit in the grand design? When you find out, let me know …

Jim Lamb is a retired journalist and author of “Orange Socks & Other Colorful Tales,” the story of how he survived Vietnam and kept his sense of humor. He accepted Christ at a Sunday chapel service in Danang.