Devotion 383 - grandpa

It started with a small repair.

A few pieces of our ceiling fell and we diagnosed a leak.  A leak lead to a carpenter, a carpenter led to a painter and the painter required we bare our walls and cover our furniture.

Along my dining room walls lay dozens of frames, photos and sentiments. As much as I loved these things on my walls and tables; they felt like clutter in the middle of a project I desperately wanted finished. So, I gave handfuls of memories to my children and we made stacks out of site.

I sat in the early morning realizing the barren nature of my walls not only cleaned our rooms but my spirit.  There was less to dust and much less to vacuum. The tables now empty seemed clean slates. I glanced to the far end of the room. One lone picture remained, a photo, now over a hundred years old stood in the corner.

It is a photo of my grandfather on his Christening day. I could remove a few photos of my children, I have plenty in every room, but this one, I simply could not remove. Hidden in that photo is the story of my granddad and I and the redemption that occurred between him and I.

Grandpa was successful.  He was a salesman who loved golf on his television and peanuts next to his chair.  When his beloved wife, my grandmother, fell ill, she came to live with us and Grandpa became her faithful Sunday visitor.  She lay bedridden.  He at her bedside sang hymns.  My mother could no longer attend church due to the intense care Grandma required but Sunday afternoons; church came to us through Grandpa. Those were sacred days.

Then one day Grandma went home to Jesus and Grandpa went home to his empty bungalow. His day came, a debilitating disease robbed him of mobility and he arrived to fill Grandma’s bed in our home.

This patient, these days were different. I was older. I could now see the extreme wear and tear on my mother. As much as I fought it, the admiration I had once had for my granddad turned to angst and anger. I despised his illness and prayed for an end to both his and mother’s suffering.

It came.

I returned home from school. My mother laid in the living room with her first of many heart attacks. The end came in a way I could not pray away.

New arrangements were made for granddad. 

Months passed but guilt and shame did not. Mother slowly recovered and the holidays dawned. Once again foregoing her own health, mother insisted on having her father home for Christmas. I quickened with anxiety. Sadness and fear overtook me as I saw him in his recliner again. What if he stayed?  What if mother collapsed again? What if I could never forgive him?

I sat quietly praying. He turned and asked what time it was. I told him it was late in the afternoon. He stirred and bid a familiar call to Mom. I imagined he would order dinner or coffee or a dozen of the things she so fondly prepared for him.

Instead, he sweetly admonished her, insisting he had to go back to his nursing facility. He had to let her rest. He had to make sure she took care of herself and the man that had so valiantly took care of his wife, was now caring for his daughter. And somewhere in those quiet moments, a thousand words were spoken of forgiveness and redemption and all that is good when love is born out of sacrifice.

I look at that photo and remember.  That Christmas was not about gifts or meals or festivities, it was about falling back in love. It was about forgiveness and it was about joy.

And my heart in the every possible way was repaired. Painted with forgiveness not for something my granddad did but something my heart believed. What was given, and then taken away was beautifully restored. I look at that photo and remember out of the deepest pain and the hardest hurt, restoration pours.

Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy.

Micah 7:18 NIV