“This is real. This is me. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be now. Gonna let the light shine on me. Now I’ve found who I am. There’s no way to hold it in. No more hiding who I wanna be. This is me.”
My grandfather died when I was 5. I don’t remember a lot about him and I wish that I did. He sounds like he was an awesome guy and seems like he enjoyed his grandchildren from watching him on home videos. He obviously had a large impact on my life because, as my mom and I were in the car one night, I asked if he was a Christian. My mom confirmed that he had been and told me a little bit more about him and then grew silent. We drove in silence for a bit before I stated that I too wanted to be a Christian. We got home and I prayed a prayer with my parents to accept Jesus Christ into my life as my Lord and Savior. This was the beginning of a life long journey that is not even close to being complete.
I grew up with my dad’s dad as my only grandfather and I adored both him and my dad’s mom. We called them Bear and Pops. They were the ones that had all the family over for any and all occasions. They worked hard to keep us all together and Pops especially drilled into us the importance of family. Most of my family lived in town so everyone would be there for all of my birthdays. If there was a holiday, there was a family gathering at Bear and Pops’. Because of this, family became an important part of my life that I held dear.
Growing up, I always longed to have the “cool” testimonial story. I would go to youth group at church or chapel at school and hear all of these amazing testimonials about how someone was in a really dark place in life and God used extraordinary circumstances to bring them to their knees and all of a sudden their eyes were opened to the brilliance of how awesome God truly is. I would listen to these stories and hear the phenomenal and compelling nature of Christ and longed for that in my own life. Plain and simple? I was jealous. I wanted someone to ask me about Jesus and be able to tell them this tragic yet adventurous story of my life and make them fall to their knees in awe of how God had worked in my life, even though I had no personal relationship with Him. Granted, this is not how God works. I realize this is a very selfish view of Christ. I was looking for personal gain in my testimonial. A testimonial is not to highlight the life of the person, but to highlight the forgiveness and compassion of God. I didn’t realize that I was basically asking God to bring me to my knees. I didn’t realize what I was asking.
Flash forward to the year 2010. I was just starting my senior year of high school, had a really close group of friends,the middle schoolers treated me like royalty, and I had made it on to the praise team that year. I had life in my pocket. I had it made. I have found that usually when you feel like you have life all together and are really proud of it, God throws you a curveball just to show you how much you really don’t have control. I had been in the choir at school for as long as I could. Every year, the seniors got to travel to a college for a big choral experience. It was a weekend spent sight reading music, learning songs, and performing what you had learned at the end of the week in a very large concert. I was beyond ecstatic to go and even more so because a bunch of my friends were going.
Let me back up because I was focused on what was going on in my life. While everything was new and exciting for me, Bear had been battling cancer for the past 2 years and Pops had been taking care of her. Like I have stated, I loved my grandparents dearly, but I was too distracted with myself to notice how bad it had been for them. Pops did not expect Bear to be able to fight much longer so he decided to have a routine heart surgery (as routine a heart surgery can get anyway) to be able to be as healthy as possible for when he had to make final preparations. The surgery was the same weekend as my choral event.
The weekend finally came. My mom and I left for the choir trip with my school and the rest of my immediate family stayed home with Pops with promises to keep us constantly updated. I was too distracted with learning music to pay much attention to what was going on at home, but my mom was sent constant text messages about Pops’ status throughout the day. She would constantly keep me informed on how he was doing in between breaks of music. The last update I heard was that he had come out of surgery, was doing well, and was even responding. That night, we were loading on to the bus to head back to the hotel. I remember having a laughing competition with one of my friends as we were all clamoring on. I was having the time of my life. Right before I took my seat, my mom told me that she had just received a text saying that something had happened with Pops and to be praying. I didn’t think too much of it but I told one of my friends to be praying. We got to the hotel and our teacher was giving us instructions for the night when I heard my mom’s phone ring and watched her leave the bus. As soon as my teacher released us, I got off as fast as I could just in time to hear my mom sadly say my sister’s name. I can’t explain how I knew but I could just tell that my grandfather had just died.
The next couple months were a blur. My mom and I drove home that night and gathered with my family in my grandparents’ kitchen discussing funeral plans for Pops and reeling over the sudden death. I spent my 18th birthday on a plane to go to his funeral. Bear decided to stop chemotherapy treatments and ended up dying 2 months later, 2 days after Christmas. My senior year was spent trying not to cry in the middle of class and flying back and forth to Ohio for funerals. It was not the way I wanted to spend my senior year of high school, but at the same time I wouldn’t change anything that happened. My grandparents meant the world to me and there isn’t a day that I miss them and wish that I could call them up or see them one more time, but that year was a defining moment in my life spiritually.
I relied heavily on my grandparents to tell me who I was. Every time my grandfather saw me, he would tell me how beautiful I was. It took me a long time after he died to realize that I have a Father who made me beautiful and I don’t need anyone except for Him to tell me. Every time I would accomplish something, I would want my grandparents to know about it, but Jesus Christ looks forward to hearing from me every moment of every day. I loved my family very dearly and would look forward to any holiday or family event so I could see everyone again. After Bear and Pops died, my family kind of fell apart and I haven’t been able to see a lot of family members since. I miss having large family events, but there is a huge spiritual family that I am a part of and I cannot wait to help this family grow while I am on the race. I prayed for a big, defining testimony. I didn’t realize that big, defining moments can bring pain, but I have found that in those toughest and most painful moments Christ draws me the closest to Him. I am beautiful because of God. I am worthy because of God. I am loved by God. Nothing else matters.
