I haven’t always been a New England Patriot fan. I know, shocking. I won’t bore you with the details, but I chose the Buffalo Bills as my east coast team while I was in middle school and high school. This was the era of Marv Levy where Jim Kelly, Bruce Smith, Thurman Thomas, James Lofton, Steve Tasker, Andre Reed, and Don Beebe tore up the field. These were the years when they went to four Superbowls and lost them all. I cheered for them heartily and loudly. They were the first team where I felt like if they won, I could win, if they lost, I felt like I lost. I was on many a losing soccer team and I would play my heart out only for us to lose the game. I would be crushed. At that time in my life I felt like a loser in so many ways so seeing my team win would encourage me. Then I would watch Jim Kelly on the sidelines cheering on his team no matter what the score. He played to the end of every game. His resilience and amazing work ethic actually made me write a letter to the team after they lost their 4th Superbowl. I just appreciated how hard they worked even when they lost. My turn to the Pats was when Doug Flute left the Bills and joined the Pats. My allegiance followed and has stayed since.
I mention this because I saw an advertisement of an interview with Jim Kelly and his wife Jill. I hadn’t thought of them for years! I had to watch it. The President of the Football Hall of Fame held the interview with the two of them. He let Jim tell us a bit of his path to the Bills. He wanted to play for Penn State, that was his dream college but when they offered him linebacker, he asked one of his five brothers if he should take it or play quarter back for Miami. With a sly comment it was clear that quarterback should be chosen so Jim went to a place he didn’t want to be. Then when the draft came he kept begging not to be chosen by the Bills. He got chosen by the Bills. He didn’t win those four Superbowls and then he retired. He met his wife, married and had a daughter. He really wanted a son and when God gave him a son, the sweet boy had Krabbe disease and wasn’t expected to live over the age of two. Jill thought that their fame and fortune could help heal their son but there was no cure that money or fame could buy. At that point, Jill realized that only God could make sense of her (and her son’s) pain, sorrow, and tears. She turned to Christ as her rock through the 8 years the Lord gave Hunter.
The day Hunter died Jim was accidently sent to the wrong hospital and he missed saying goodbye to his boy that he loved. He was so angry and hurt at God for not letting him say goodbye. His mother in law wrote him a letter encouraging him to step up and seek forgiveness from the Lord and help his family. In God’s kindness, Jim listened. He repented, asked Jill to forgive him of all his unfaithfulness and other sins, and his heart was changed. But his life did not get easier. He got diagnosed with cancer of the jaw. The doctor’s told him he wouldn’t survive. But he did. Jim gives credit to God, his family and former players that visited him and helped him fight back. He joked that he even got letters from Miami and Patriot players! He is a cancer survivor 3 times over.
Jill says of her epiphany with the Lord, “He allowed me to chase after the things of this world that are absolutely empty, because at the end of all the emptiness that’s there, He is still there. It took the suffering of our only son to bring us to the only suffering that matters and that is the suffering of God’s one and only son.”
Erin, one of his daughters said, “I remember growing up, my dad always said to me, ‘You have to be Kelly Tough. I didn’t understand the fullness of what that meant until I actually saw my earthly father be weak. It just drew me to seek the strength of my Heavenly Father. It allowed us (as a family) to look to God’s strength and say, ‘Lord, you are good even in the midst of this, you are good and you are taking care of every detail and we have nothing to fear because we know that in death we can have life.’”
Phew! I watched the interview in awe of these huge truths coming from this family that has suffered so much. I saw Ecclesiastes being spun out in this century. Vanity of vanity all is vanity when it comes to happiness without Christ. I saw a modern day Job watch what he strived for slip away: fame, family, and even his health. I realized that they didn’t believe the lie that becoming a believer means all your problems go away. In fact, they may get worse! Yet their hope is in that their sins are forgiven. Their worst problem, separation from a holy God, has been solved because of their trust in Christ their Savior. When they die, they get Jesus. They get eternal life with no sadness, no tears, no death, no pain, no cancer, no Krabbe disease, and no more losses. They gain Christ, face to face.
Who knew that 20 years later, that Bill legacy would continue to teach me to fight to the end… for the good fight of the faith.