My earthly hero and mentor, my Grandpa Rusty, passed from here to eternity this year and I often find myself thinking on all he has invested in my life. Today for some reason, I find myself in past thoughts of walking him down the hall of the nursing home, pushing him in the wheelchair with his mind suffering from dementia or Alzheimer disease and he crying because, as he said to me, "I used to led men in the military in Korea, and now I can't even find myself around a building".
How devastating it is to have lost memories of most all that is familiar to you.
My Grandpa worked extremely hard. He suffered much, but never complained. His attitude was always positive and his instructions always headed some sort of warning about not to worry about molehills. He had impacted many people throughout his years and edified them all in every way possible. Even those that would steal from him, he would say, they lived a hard life.
During the last days of his life, when his mind was no longer alert and his body no longer able to function without help, I spent the night with him in the hospital while he suffered from many different ailments that were threatening to shut his body down. He pulled out of the illnesses for awhile, but only for a few more days before his body grew tired and he gave up his earthly body for a glorfied body in Christ. But what happened during that night stayed with me. When he was near ready to go home to be with Jesus...he knew exactly where home was. It was not in a house or dwelling here on earth, it was the home Jesus had prepared for him. Of all the things he couldn't remember, or could no longer do, he didn't forget his home in eternity. He called out for God to take him home. No disease or sickness could ever make him forget that.
When I am striving in life to do my very best...I wonder, who I am striving for? It makes me think of the book of Ecclesiastes.
Everything Is Meaningless
1 The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
Ecclesiastes 1 New International Version (NIV)
How devastating it is to have lost memories of most all that is familiar to you.
My Grandpa worked extremely hard. He suffered much, but never complained. His attitude was always positive and his instructions always headed some sort of warning about not to worry about molehills. He had impacted many people throughout his years and edified them all in every way possible. Even those that would steal from him, he would say, they lived a hard life.
During the last days of his life, when his mind was no longer alert and his body no longer able to function without help, I spent the night with him in the hospital while he suffered from many different ailments that were threatening to shut his body down. He pulled out of the illnesses for awhile, but only for a few more days before his body grew tired and he gave up his earthly body for a glorfied body in Christ. But what happened during that night stayed with me. When he was near ready to go home to be with Jesus...he knew exactly where home was. It was not in a house or dwelling here on earth, it was the home Jesus had prepared for him. Of all the things he couldn't remember, or could no longer do, he didn't forget his home in eternity. He called out for God to take him home. No disease or sickness could ever make him forget that.
When I am striving in life to do my very best...I wonder, who I am striving for? It makes me think of the book of Ecclesiastes.
Everything Is Meaningless
1 The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
Ecclesiastes 1 New International Version (NIV)
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