The most exciting thing that happened this week had to be the time I was able to spend with my grandfather...
Victor, my grandfather, has been one of the closest and dearest people to my heart for my entire life. Although he is not a Christian, he has been one of the most influential people in my life spiritually. e is not a hard person about anything in life, except God (of course he picks the most important decision of his life the thing worth being stubborn on). But even though he does not believe in God, God has used him in my life greatly to give me a burden for those who do not have a relationship with Him. I could write pages about what my grandfather has taught me spiritually without ever trying, but that will have to be a different post.
My grandpa lives very close to me in Arizona and for as long as I have been alive I have been praying for him and sharing with him every chance I get about what life is like with a relationship with Jesus. He is always so hard when I bring it up...he will go off about how when he moved to Rhode Island from Honduras the church in town that had the only private school refused to let his daughters in because the were Hispanic. Or he will tell stories about how his father abandoned him and his twin brother was shot while they were hunting together as teenagers—and how could there be a God who would allow pain? We have had hundreds, maybe thousands of conversations of him just pouring out his heart, his hard heart about why God cannot and does not exist. I have often driven home feeling so hopeless and not being able to see any possible way that he would surrender his life to the Lord...I knew it would take a miracle.
Well...I started praying for a miracle when I was at a kids camp in 3rd grade...so about 13 years ago and the week in Honduras was the first glimpse of an answered prayer. When we got to my grandfather’s nephew’s house in San Pedro Sula we all sat around a table and everyone immediately began to share stories. Come to find out, both of my grandfather’s nephews are Christians and my grandfather’s father became a Christian in the later years of his life. Christ changed his life and he stopped drinking and actually raised my grandpa’s nephew’s when their father abandoned them. At the beginning of the week, my grandpa just shrugged it off and made comments like, “na...he was a drunk” but by the end of the week he was telling us story after story through teary eyes about how many good memories he had of his father.
I was sitting at one of my grandpa’s nephew’s houses and they began to share a poem with my grandpa that his father had written shortly before he died. Victor was translating it from Spanish into English for me and he was so choked up he couldn’t finish it. I am going to post the poem in a week or so once I have it completely translated, but a few lines from the poem that I remember were—
Who is this God? This amazing being?
Who can make an egg into a bird
A worm into a butterfly
A lost and soul into a beautiful child?
On the plane ride home I realized that I have developed a poor misconception of God’s love over the years...
I always heard it said and believed it whole heartedly that if we continue to harden our hearts that God will at some point stop drawing us to Him. I have heard it used in altar calls and evangelistic services and while I am sure there is some truth to that, I think it has been taken out of context. God is love. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love always hopes. Love always perseveres. Love endures all things. Love always protects. God’s love is never ending and unfailing. In the past I have often prayed, “Father, I know he has hardened his heart so many times....but please still draw him to you.” As I watched God so intentionally pursue my Grandfather’s heart during that week, I realized that there is nothing that can separate us from God’s love. Eight years old or eighty years old, saint or murderer, God’s love will continue to pursue our hearts and call out to us until the day we die.
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