Life Truly is a Vapor!

As I was about to order my lunch this afternoon I got a phone call from my mother who knew that I was about to eat lunch. She told me that my grandfather is unresponsive and an ambulance is taking him to the ER. So I immediately went up to the hospital. Here is one of my experiences while sitting with him.

Alone, watching him struggling to breath. His legs look like they should be on a corpse, dark, purple splotches all over, they are cold. I put my hands in his hands and began to tell him how much he means to me. How I am so thankful for his teaching me a strong work ethic, how to respect people and oneself. He taught me to respect authority and the law. He showed to me faithfulness to his church. He taught me the importance of initative, and the importance of studying, reading and writing. I told him that I love him and that I will be with him all the way. Therefore, I proceded to read the Gospel to Him and told him that I want someone to do that for me when I am in his state. I exhorted him to believe in the words of Jesus, in the death of Christ on the cross for the remission our sins, of His resurrection and ascension, and of the eternal hope promised to those who are born again into the adoption of God. I told of the promises of the Gospel, and again exhorted him to believe. Looking at him, I noticed he had not opened his eyes. I kept my hands in his and asked him to squeeze my hand if he heard me. I felt his fingers feeling mine. He opened one eye and looked at me. Then he closed it and his hands fell limp again. Maybe he believed, just maybe. Our God is sovereign!

He is going to be 84 this coming September 11th. A day that is marked by tragedy for him, for not only is it the day the Twin Towers fell, but it was the day his mother was buried. That makes him almost 84 years young! Around 1 AM my cousin came in to the hospital room to visit him. One of her last memories of our grandpa was from just a few weeks ago. Her memory goes a little like this: "Me and my best friend from college went to visit grandpa. As we went into the house we found him not only doing his laundry but he was watching it. Here is a man that has had all the money a man could want, all the toys he could want, all the successes, with a great influence upon the community over the years with nothing better to do with his time then to watch his laundry being washed." 84 years seems like a long time, but in all reality it truly is only a whisp of vapor. All the things that we do or do not do will count for eternity. Even the small things. Our lives will be marked by tragedies and flaws. We are flawed saints but the beauty is in the remembering of that flawed saint's life. Remembering the grace and power of God wokring through and flowing out from that flawed life. It brings Him great pleasure and it brings us unspeakable joy!