I had a thought come to me yesterday. I had already blogged, so I saved it for today. I'm speaking to one of my favorite people in the world (who will remain nameless in order to keep the focus on this story), and I had an epiphany.
Epiphanies are these WOW! moments where something you've NEVER thought of before suddenly pops up in your mind. You are held captive by it. It takes your breath away. It makes your heartbeat speed up. Some people in your life have the unseen talent of making this happen. My grandpa was one of those people. He has been with Jesus for a few years now, but I realized yesterday that his influence in my life continues on in ways I had never, before yesterday that is, recognized.
We moved in with my grandparents when I was around 8 or 9 years old. My grandparents house had a hallway with so many books. To my young eyes, it seemed like the biggest library ever, I mean, I felt as if you should need a library card just to come to my house sometimes (J/K!). This library hallway was on the way out to the garage, on the way out of the house, on the way to my grandparents living room, and back into our living room. You literally couldn't go from the one end of the house to the other without passing these hallway of books.
There were so many days that I would come running in from the front or backyard, and would pass through the room with the bookshelves. The bookshelves were always "yellow" to my young eyes. It looked like someone had painted the inside of the bookshelves a bright yellow with black writing that went up & down. As a little boy, I was always curious and wanting to find out about things I didn't know about.
The yellow color came from the massive amounts of National Geographic magazines that my Grandpa had. He literally had bookshelves full of these magazines. Well, my little mind was curious and I would always try to find my birthday month, February, and open it up. I was always amazed at how people lived, how different they looked, and their customs...which of course was not what I called it back then. Often times I would just randomly select a book and just read about the way people lived from all over the world. It was SO FASCINATING to my young mind and heart. It always made me excited to read them.
What I have never really thought about before was how my Grandpa's National Geographics were a very instrumental tool that God used to burden my heart for other cultures. God was in that house consistently shaping, molding, and making me into who He desired me to be. Literally, my heart was being developed into what God wanted it to be someday every time I would curiously pick out one of the magazines at "random."
It is really thought provoking for me to recognize that my Grandpa would never know what this was doing. He wasn't aware that God was preparing me for a future in missions work and ministry. He would go on to be with Jesus far before I would even ever recognize the impact he had on me. Sometimes in our lives, we won't ever get the credit we deserve for making an impact on someone else's life...but this seems to sit fine with Godly people. They love it when God gets the credit.
I also thought about how people who are just living for God, don't have to advertise that they are. They can simply live, and people's lives will be impacted by what they do and what they say. This doesn't mean you don't open your mouth to share who God is, it just means that you won't always know that your actions made a difference when you were just living your day for the Lord.
I wished I would have been able to tell him how much having those magazines would shape my heart for others, how it would remove from my mind the level of uncomfortability that lots of people have to work through in order to love people so much different than them. It removed that uncomfort, and much more, it gave me a burden to reach people different than me. God used a part of my daily routine of walking my those bookshelves on my way out of the house.
I miss my Grandpa and more as I get older. I wish I would have taken the opportunity to talk more with him before he went on to be with Jesus. I can say, for my part, that I at least desire to live a life that would make proud the man who God used in more ways than I know to shape me into who I am today.
