For those who don’t know, at IDES every staff member takes turns leading our daily prayer meetings for a week. To me, the idea of leading my coworkers in this context felt daunting as a young person who is still trying to figure out what it means to pursue my faith of my own accord. When I realized last month that my week was coming up, I was unsure what to do, but then this past Easter my grandpa gave each of his kids and grandkids a copy of a collection of his life stories. It was a very thoughtful gift and I realized that to share how much I learn from influences like my grandfather might be an honest and engaging way to share some devotional thoughts with my team.
The book is full of his stories both serious and lighthearted; a childhood with three brothers, serving in the military, the joys and struggles of getting married and building his own family, undergoing changes in his career path, losing his wife in 2019, experiencing a strange and lonely pandemic time in the wake of this loss, and marrying again a few years ago to his wife Barb who we couldn’t be more grateful to have as part of our family. Through these life experiences he has also tied together a story of learning to trust God as he turns difficulty and heartache and mistakes into deeper faith and good gifts directly from God.
I admire that my Grandpa didn’t shy away from admitting that you can’t always get it right. I love how good he is at taking opportunities to exercise trust. I'm most grateful that he cared so much that he took the time to write so much of it down and place it directly into the hands of the people he loves so dearly.
The biggest takeaway I hoped for from the week was how grateful I am that God puts spiritual leaders and caretakers in our lives, and in turn how important it is to seek wisdom as we surely over time will become these same kinds of examples to the people around us. I hope you will pause and reflect on how God has woven a web of people together in your life as we all help and care for each other as we journey through life.
Where there is no guidance, a people falls,
but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.
Proverbs 11:14