Growing up in a small town was the best moments of my life. Long summer evenings with the sun resting on the field’s horizon and the sounds of screen doors opening and closing between innings of back yard baseball. My Great-grandmother was the town librarian and a faithful member of our church. She was widowed for the majority of her life, due to my Great-grandfather who had died in a plane crash during an attempted landing in a field just outside of the town limits. She never really talked about their marriage or expressed any pain that she may have been feeling. I always remember her being filled with joy and being a “light” of guidance toward everyone who came to see her for their book reports or to chat about the days forecast.
The years went by season after season with vibrant foliage in the fall to blistering snow drifts of winter and the return of kids running down town to the arcade after the last bell rang to end the school year. Faithfully, my Great-grandmother would sit upon the front step of the library, which is now named in her honor and wait for anyone who needed her help in seeking a new release or the latest readers digest. I would see her often sitting inside the library alone, reading her latest romance novel at the small wooden desk that accompanied her. “How does she sit in there all day like that?” I would say to myself. Now, being older and having walked some miles with the Lord at my side…I know exactly how she did it, with peace and assurance of Gods promises.
I cannot begin to understand the depth of emotional pain and loneliness she must have felt after the death of her husband, my Great-grandfather. The strength that carried her through the great depression, death of a beloved husband and the redeeming life she built with the grace of God. After almost fifty years of laboring in serving God and others in our wonderful small town, she had to leave the library she loved as her health began to fail her. My Great-grandmother has since went to be with our Lord in the kingdom of Heaven and to rejoice in His presence alongside the husband she loved and longed for through so many seasons of living in the faith.
Revelation 14:13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, said the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.
Fellow believers and those new to the cross, I know you are tired, but keep carrying the cross wherever God puts you. God sees you and what He knows about you is far more important than what others think about you. Turn your efforts this week on the works needed for others and experience Gods power reaching into your life as a faithful follower.