Lessons from my Grandmother
First. Sanctification is a process. It takes your whole life to work out your salvation. No matter where you are in life, it still boils down to you alone before God. I'm learning more about sanctification from watching my family grow older. (I think I learn more from watching than I ever could from theology textbooks.) It's reassuring to know that we will sin and God will be faithful. Age 20, 50, or 80 ... there's always room to grow.Second. Every stage in life presents a new twist, a new lesson, a new hardship. You've never got "it" completely figured out. And mostly, the questions we ask always look toward the future. What will it be like? What will I do? What purpose will I have?
My grandmother told me tonight that aging was like working on a country farm. You work hard all week to get the chores done so you can sit on the veranda on Saturday night and wait for Sunday morning church to come. It broke my heart to hear her say, "I've got my chores done and I'm just waiting for Sunday to come."
I wanted to say to her, "Don't give up, Grandma! Don't just wait. Keep on ministering the way you have for so many years. Don't give up on sanctification, because even at 86, God's not finished with you yet!" But I didn't. I just listened and I wept inside.
2 Comments:
awww... do you ever feel like we need some adventurous old person to get up and start a ministry somewhere... to almost give them permission to still minister. I don't know...
But yeah, Driscoll is not PCA. He's more Baptist Reformed. Reason I enjoy him is not that I always agree, but that he does a great job of destroying this whole emergent post-modern movement. I'll be honest, it scares me a little. So what is RPCNA? I'm pretty sure all I know is that you do not use musical instruments in church. What are the other big distinctives? Are you closer to PCA or Baptist Reformed or neither?
I think all of us, to some extent, will struggle with this someday: "What is our purpose at the end of life?"
I think that a lot of older women, especially, who are used to living a life of service and are now on the receiving end, have a particularly hard time.
But, you're right, there is a reason why God keeps us here on this earth, regardless of what age or stage.
I know for people like grandma, they often (sadly) don't realize how much they mean to us (and how much they contribute) even when they aren't "doing" a bunch of things and feeling very useful. They are still a blessing.
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