Mark Bivins
Rarely in life do you get a chance to meet someone who challenges you in ways that cause you to think deeply about life’s fairness and have the end result cause you to rejoice from the inside-out. Mark Bivins was that type of person.
Mark could have easily been the type of person who held grudges and claimed unfairness because Mark was deaf. He could hear nothing, not even the loving voice of his mother or friends. He could not hear a favorite song that causes you to smile each time it is played nor could he hear the laughter of his nieces and nephews that make the rest of us smile.
Mark instead saw the world from a brighter point of view. He saw the laughter and smiled back. He felt the beat and moved in silence. He used his hands and his face to communicate his brilliant humor and joy for life and no one misunderstood what he was saying.
Mark and I played golf a few times together and I never had more fun on a golf course. He took me to play once on a course that was beside the airport in Charlotte. Planes would fly over us only a few hundred feet above and would be so loud that I had to stop what I was doing before I could hit the ball. I noticed that he would chuckle each time I stopped and he asked me if the noise bothered me. I signed yes it did, and again he laughed. Not me, he said, as he hit his next shot with no distractions.
I tried to learn his language and never quite mastered it. Many times I would say things to him that were really wrong and he would correct me by spelling it out with his fingers. When I still got it wrong he would hit his head with his fist, the sign for dummy, and laugh as I shook my head in frustration. Then with all the patience in the world, he would teach me the right way to sign what I was trying to say.
One thing that I never got wrong is when Mark would call me friend. He always thanked me for my sermons on Sunday morning and said that he was praying for me and our church. Sometimes I would watch him on Sunday morning as he heard what I said through his brother and interpreter and I could see how God was talking to him. He knew Jesus and Jesus knew him.
Toward the last part of Mark’s life, the last time I had a conversation with him, I asked him what he wanted me to pray about. He just smiled and said I’m fine. How can I pray for you?
I wish that I had more time with him, but God needed him to come home. Mark was grace on display as he battled with cancer and cancer took that battle over his body. But the soul of Mark Bivins was untouched. And God took someone who had plenty to call life unfair and showed us all how grace made all things right.
I will miss you Mark, but I will rejoice in how you impacted me in such a short time. Today you hear the voice that sounds of love and we live in silence as the laughter you gave us on earth has ceased. Ever since that first round of golf, I have chuckled at the planes flying over head and thanked God that I could think of you in every loud noise that they make. While you hear the perfect love of Christ, I will hear you in things from above. Thanks for the laughter, my dear friend!
