A Tribute to My Grandpa

My grandpa passed away on Monday, December 18, 2017, and this is what I shared at his Celebration of Life service the following week. 

Every time we had a school project to do on a hero, my grandpa was the first person I’d go to. The little journalist in me filled my steno-book with questions as I interviewed my grandpa about his days in the Navy, life aboard a ship, the Korean War, and his work at the shipyard. He’d joyfully answer my questions and I took great pride in recording his answers and crafting the perfect presentation to share with my teacher and my classmates because I wanted everyone to know about my grandpa. I wanted my class to know about his bravery, his dedication, his strength, and his faith—for that is what made my grandpa such a hero in my eyes.

Now, fast forward 30 years and I feel like that same little girl today who earnestly wants you to see the greatness that I see in my grandpa. Yet words seem so inadequate because no words can describe the bond that we shared as I was his #1 (he’d always call me that bcs I was his first grandchild.)

My grandpa was the only one I could sit and have a conversation with and never utter a word and I’d leave thinking that was one of the best conversations we’ve ever had. He was an introvert like me and all throughout my life, my favorite times with him centered around sitting together in silence. No words were needed because love, acceptance, and support spoke louder than words. However, when my grandpa did speak, his words were deep, truthful, thankful, and always pointed back to God both in the good and bad times. He enjoyed talking about what God was teaching him and how it intersected with his life. He loved to share memories of my grandma, my mom, and even me and my sister in our younger days and he always shared how He saw God working in our lives. My grandpa was very thankful for his salvation and always spoke of the fact that he was a first-generation Christian. He didn’t grow up knowing God like we did, so every day was a new discovery for him and he tried to live faithfully to God in all that he did.

My grandpa was a strong leader, but also a silent leader. He knew how to command attention with his presence yet he knew how to gently shepherd each heart in his care.

My grandpa’s strength was heard across a room or a sanctuary as he opened his voice to sing or to pray. He sang and prayed with such gusto, conviction, and love for God that everyone knew he believed every word that he sang or spoke.

His strength was seen in the way he led our family as he cherished my grandma, faithfully prayed for each one of us, intentionally spoke God’s Word to us as we shared our lives with him, and consciously praised God for both the trials and the blessings.

What I enjoyed about my grandpa was that he was as serious about life as I was. He was always willing to talk deeply and would explore different ideas with me whether it was something spiritual or envisioning what God could do in ministry or an intriguing subject at school or figuring out motherhood. He always listened to whatever I had to say as if it was the most important thing that could be said in that moment for he knew the gift and joy of being present in the moment without distractions. My grandpa is the one that taught me the most about what God must be like and his example continually pushed me to search for more of God because I wanted to be a wise person of strength just like him.

            Yesterday, Psalm 100:5 really jumped out at me—“For the Lord is good and His faithful love endures forever; his faithfulness through all generations.” This is something my grandpa believed. He was able to be faithful to God because he experienced God’s faithfulness for himself.

I used to wonder what does God’s faithfulness look like and can God be as faithful to me as He has been to my grandpa and then I look at what all as has unfolded since my grandpa died last week. Less than 12 hours after we buried my grandpa, my husband was in the ER with heart attack symptoms. 24 hours after that, we were back in the ER and admitted overnight. It seemed so surreal to be going through all of this because I was still trying to grasp the fact that my grandpa is gone. But this is where I got to experience that same faithfulness my grandpa so often spoke of. God’s faithfulness showed up in His peace and comfort. And He is showing up in all the ways that our friends, family, and church family are loving us and taking care of us. God was in the details already knowing that this is too much for one family to handle, but yet He faithfully provided ways for us to walk through it.

In that long night at the hospital, I couldn’t help but think about the many times my grandpa sat by my grandma’s side, loving her, watching her, praying over her, and reading His Bible to help both of them get through as I did the same thing with my husband. And once again, my grandpa’s example of strength challenged me to keep seeking God and looking for His faithfulness and that is what allows me to stand here before you today.

Because God was faithful to my grandpa, my grandpa lived a life of faithfulness to Him. Because of my grandpa’s faithfulness, 3 generations of our family have been able to know God and have been invited to experience the faithfulness of God, too.

Anyone related to my grandpa is very familiar with his heart’s desire and it’s found in 3 John 1:4—“I have no greater joy than this: to hear that my children are walking in truth.” My grandpa knew the truth, walked in the truth, and died in truth knowing that he will not only be with my grandma but with his Heavenly Father forever and he wants that same truth to be our truth!

My grandpa’s life teaches us that, real strength comes from walking in the truth. That truth is ONLY found in the Word of God and through the Holy Spirit weaving that Word into our lives. That kind of truth goes far beyond church attendance, ministry involvement, and keeping up a polished Christian image. The kind of truth my grandpa lived by was a day-to-day, step-by-step kind of truth as he sought after God and banked on God’s love and faithfulness to get him through everything.

So while the little journalist in me knows to conclude this by repeating the topic sentence of why my grandpa is my hero, what I really want to say is that his death brings a loss that I have never known before. He has been such a rock to me throughout my 40 years. But while the tears and heartache will last for awhile, my grandpa taught all of us who knew him everything we need to know to make it here without him. He didn’t leave us empty-handed and lost, but rather he continues to encourage us to live and thrive by fulfilling the simple affirmation of  3 John 1:4—“I have no greater joy than this: to hear that my children are walking in truth.”

Theologian Albert Barnes from the 1800s writes “There is nothing that would give more peace to the dying pillow of the Christian parent [or grandparent], than to be able to leave the world with the assurance that his children would always walk in truth." That is all my grandpa ever wanted from us. May we remember that, and may we seek after truth and live to experience God’s faithfulness just like he did!