Every morning my grandpa gets up, showers, get’s dressed in his suit and tie, has breakfast, spends time in the word, meditates on it (sometime nods off), then goes for a walk around the park. At the park he stops to take a break at 3 spots and at each point he looks up and says, “Beautiful, this view is so beautiful”. He is 90.
Late last year he had a heart attack and went into hospital for four bypass surgery. A month after coming out of the hospital his wife (my grandmother) falls over concrete steps and she passes away. That same month he gets an infection right down to the bone of his toe causing it to be amputated.
This man has every right to give up on his routine, to loose sight of the beauty in things around him. But he doesn’t. He’s a mentor, a father, a pastor, a preacher, a prayer warrior, a widower and survivor. He has so much wisdom to pass on and sometimes I feel like he gets treated like a naive child or lost old man but he’s not!
The churches try to categorize him and put him with senior groups that play cards and go on excursions. Although he doesn’t mind those things, his idea of a good time is being part of a prayer group or evangelising to people. He tells stories, listens and learns others stories, and then prays for them. It makes him come alive. In my pastoral ministry subject we discussed the gap between the generations in churches. This gap creates issues as the younger generation are trying to figure things out on their own when there’s a world of wisdom out there to glean from.
If the younger generation made time from their busy schedules to sit with people like him they too will learn how to live a life of perseverance, health and spirituality.
Yours Sincerely, J 