In a week I have the opportunity to speak to the students of Grace Student Ministries. It is a group I haven't interacted much with, so I have felt led as of late to share my story with them as the mighty work of God is many times most clearly seen in each of our life stories.
As I got thinking about my life journey, I couldn't help but reflect upon one of the pivotal moments of my teenage years (and there were a number). It was 1988 and my brother and I were driving to school to finish out our year and take some final exams. My grandfather had not been well and my parents had been spending quite a bit of time with my grandmother, so we were not shocked to see them gone when my brother and I awoke that morning. But... we were shocked when we pulled into the school parking lot and saw them sitting there visibly upset.
It was that morning I found out my grandfather with whom I was very close to had passed away. He was a wonderful man who loved and served the Lord faithfully his entire life. He was a pastor who had the spiritual gift of evangelism and he spent the later part of his life traveling around the Continent sharing the good news that Jesus Christ saves sinners.
His death did two things within my life as an almost 17 year old. It left a huge vacancy as I always enjoyed hanging out with my grandfather. He was full of life and it was contagious! But it also got me thinking hard for the very first time about spiritual matters as I was forced to face the reality as a teenager that life on this earth is but very temporal which left me asking, "then what?".
God was at work in my life and months later He would use a visit to my grandfather's tombstone to influence the very direction of my life. More on that in my next post...
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