We had our first-ever Venema cousins gathering recently. Maybe forty-some years had passed since I’d last seen my cousin Joan. She was the second child of my Uncle Clare, my father’s oldest sibling. Uncle Clare would eventually inherit my grandparents’ family grandfather clock because he was their oldest child. And Joan’s older brother, Clare, Jr., would inherit the clock after that, because he was the oldest child of the oldest child. I didn’t believe Clare, Jr. really deserved it: he didn’t seem to be as serious or cultured as his sister. Nor was he as imbued with the gravitas of the Venema family’s second-generation immigrant aspirations, which, to me, the clock represented. Every Sunday when all the cousins, aunts and uncles, gathered at my Grandpa and Grandma Venema’s after church, I’d stand in front of it, entranced by its metronome tick and the echo of its Westminster chime. As much as I loved and coveted it, I knew it would never hold a place of honor in my living room, since I was merely the oldest child of the youngest son of Joseph and Jenny Vanden Berg Venema. However, I thought, if it couldn’t be mine, Joan would have been its appropriate recipient.

Given our age difference, my recollections of her are vague. I do recall that she was pretty, with blonde hair, a creamy complexion and a beautiful voice. Uncle Clare was very solicitous and protective and proud of his only daughter. He smiled when she came into the room and became gentler. I have a memory of him playing the violin in the music room of their home, accompanying Joan as she sang, smiling her lovely smile.

Eventually, Joan received a music scholarship to DePauw University in Indiana and moved beyond my Grand Rapids, Michigan world. She resurfaces in my childhood memory only once more, when the Venema aunts gave her a bridal shower. Her fiancé, Will, showed up at the end. She perched on his lap, laughing and happy, with her arm entwined around his neck and his around her waist. An awkward twelve year old, I had no experience with that kind of activity yet, and even now I can summon up my slight embarrassment about it. After they married, I lost touch with her. I knew via the family grapevine that Will was a successful road contractor, that they had four handsome sons, and that they moved in conservative evangelical church circles. But I didn’t know her, nor did I have any idea of what mattered to her in those intervening years.

Nevertheless, in two significant ways, she–unbeknownst to her–has mattered to me. The first has to do with a recording of Christian music that she made many years ago. All of my admiration for her surged back as I listened to her singing, especially her lilting rendition of a new musical version of “Jesus Loves Me.” Over and over and over again, I listened to that recording, letting it seep into my soul, proud that I knew the soloist. Joan’s recording deepened something that already ran deep in me: I love and am strengthened by the psalms and hymns of the church. Joan and I probably have different theological understandings now, but I’m glad to be able to say that she and I could both agree with Karl Barth that “Jesus Loves Me” sums up the heart of the gospel. Every time I hear that little song, Joan’s voice comes to memory and I say thanks for the gift of her voice and for the faith background we both share.

The second way that Joan has mattered to me is a distant one—via a tape recording. My parents were often in touch with Joan and Will, and they had sent my dad a tape of lectures on the book of Romans by an evangelical preacher whose unfamiliar name is long lost to me. One summer night at a large cottage my parents had rented for our whole family in South Carolina, we decided that we would listen together to one of the tapes Joan and Will had sent. Thus it came about that my life was changed. It was August, 1979.

The tape lecture was based on Paul’s treatment in Romans 4 of God’s Genesis promise of an heir to Abraham. Paul links the fulfillment of that promise to Abraham’s faith that it would come true: he would someday have an heir—all appearances to the contrary. Here’s the Mary Swierenga version of that life-transforming passage: “Abraham believed in those things which were not, as though they already were.”

Now, I had smoked for sixteen years and really wanted to quit. But it was a tough struggle and so far I hadn’t succeeded. I also wished to grow spiritually, and somehow linked giving up cigarettes to a belief that that God would bless my life if I did. As I listened to that tape, I took my cue from Abraham. I believed in those things which were not as though they already were.

It happened, just like the preacher in Joan’s tape had said. I vowed that once I’d slowly eked out my last pack of cigarettes, I would never smoke again. And I haven’t. The things that were not began to be: I began to make the scriptures my own through prayer and study; I began a Bible study in my neighborhood; I was elected an elder in my church; I eventually was called to begin seminary, and was ordained to the ministry of word and sacrament on October 30, 1988. Since then, there have been many additional components in that transformation of my life, including counseling and Adult Children of Alcoholics. But it was the opening up of my heart and will to God on that August evening that marked its beginning.

My cousin Joan has no idea how God used her to make a difference in my life, nor does she know how much her life has mattered to mine. I think it’s past time to contact her and tell her what a blessing she’s been to me. And maybe I’ll also tell her that, as the oldest child, I have inherited my parents’ grandmother clock. It stands in a place of honor in my living room and I think of her as its resonant chime marks the hours.