As one of the younger grandchildren, I didn't know him as well as a lot of my siblings and cousins, so I don't have a whole blog post full of memories and feelings to write, but I wanted to share something that has really meant a lot to me.
My grandparents influenced a LOT of people. I think they saw a lot of fruit from their labor, but I'm sure a lot of fruit was never seen by them, and sometimes they saw fruit from labor they never saw.
What I mean by that is simply that God works in so many ways, and when people are following Him and open to being used by Him, He can use them in situations in which they can't even see Him working.
One of those times was 6 years ago, when he talked with his 11 year old granddaughter on the phone, on her birthday.
Grandpa always called us on our birthdays, I was happy to talk to him. He asked if I wanted him to start giving out $200 to people on their birthdays, I joked along and said yes.
But then he said something I don't think I'll ever forget.
"My eleventh year was a huge growing year for me spiritually," he told me. He said some more, something along the lines of it being a huge turning point and he grew really close to God that year.
I was really mad at him for saying that.
What he didn't know, was that I had started into the darkest season of my life a year earlier. Everything had been getting steadily worse, and I knew, going into my eleventh year, that it was going to be even worse.
I was purposely turning my back on God, and I did NOT want that kind of reminder. I didn't let on, I said something polite and tried to change the subject.
This dark season continued for the next two years. I became a Christian when I was 13, but before that, God never stopped calling me.
When I look back, I see SO many ways God called me during those three years, and one of the ways He continued to use was that memory.
It came back to me many, many times, and I remember thinking about that with so much regret when I became a Christian. God opened my eyes to the amount of people who had been praying for me, even though no one knew what I was struggling through, and He impressed it on me that my grandparents had prayed for me a lot.
I am so, so grateful for my grandparents.
I wiah I could tell my grandpa how much that phone call means to me now, but I can't. By the time I overcame my fear of telling anyone about that time in my life, he had developed alzheimers. If I told him, he wouldn't remember the phone call, and he might not even remember me.
But I look forward to seeing him someday when we're both in the company of our favorite person, and I can look into the face of the One who called me into relationship with Himself, and one of the ones He used to get my attention.
