No guilt in life, no fear in death

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.

I’m not sure how to even start a post like this. My sweet grandfather went to be with Jesus on Thursday evening, and everything feels like one big blur from that point to now. He was an extremely active part of our lives, and I spent as much time at his house growing up as I did at my house.  At his funeral, I had the opportunity to say a few words and I thought those words were the best fit for todays post, too.

Sometimes there is just no good place to start with words. On Thursday evening, everything was okay and then it wasn’t. Our lives changed in just a few minutes and to be honest, I think we all sit here, still shocked that we are at a funeral. I absolutely could not let this day pass us by without standing up here and saying a few words about one of my favorite men in all the world. 

Because he is so much more than those words you read in the obituary.

 He was the kind of grandfather who could do anything for you, didn’t matter what you needed fixed or what you needed, he would take care of it. There wasn’t anything he didn’t know how to do and he never liked to use the word no in conversations with his grandchildren. 

He taught me how to drive and how to strum a few chords on the guitar. He let me stay up as late as I wanted and sit at the kitchen table and talk to him about anything I wanted to say. And he listened. He was never distracted or too busy. He would get down in the floor with us as kids and play, I mean really play, not the kind of half-hearted playing that most adults do.

And proud? He was so proud, and he would tell you. The kind of telling you that made you really believe it, and believe in yourself. There was nothing that he thought I couldn’t do. He never missed a graduation or party, never missed a family dinner, and he was never there out of obligation, but just proud to be with his family. He came to my house on a near weekly basis to play with my kids, no one loved them quite like him, and they knew it. 

He had the biggest heart, the best stories, and the brightest smile. 

He liked to tell the story of me repeatedly asking him to come to church with me, and give me a little credit for getting him in church. But, what he didn’t know, what I never told him, was just how big of an impact he had on my faith. When I was little and his health problems started to present themselves to us, I would ask Jesus every single night for just a little more time with him. And as the milestones rolled by, my mindset shifted a bit. Each and every time I saw his face in the crowd at a wedding or graduation, when he walked into the hospital room to see his great-grandchildren for the first time, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. I knew the enormous blessing that was in front of me, and I never once took it for granted. The same faith I have today, first grew in the heart of a child praying for her grandfather, it’s something that will never leave me. 

When I think about what he would want you to know and what he’d want me to share, it’s this. My papaw was far from perfect. You see, the good thing about those imperfections, is if God puts them on the right people, we are able to see an amazing testimony rise out of the ashes of something that was meant to harm and destroy. He would want you to know that he is not the author of his story, he isn’t the hero. The hero here is Jesus, the one who brought peace and love into his life, the one who saw him for what he could be, rather than what he was, the one who saw the struggle, but overlooked it because he knew the heart. He loved Jesus dearly, and I have no doubt that today he’d want you to do the same, to let Him change your life, too.