Learning my heritage: My Grandpa's story

I got to see my Grandpa Pahl's Bronze Star tonight.

He served in WWII in an artillery unit attached to the 66th Division (Black Panthers).

He was about to board the Leopoldville when he was instructed to board a different ship instead (Leopoldville was sunk in transit).

He served mainly in the Lorient sector, containing an area deep behind our lines where cut-off and entrenched German troops held several ports and refused to surrender.

I'm appreciative to learn this and privileged to share another example of service and duty.

I never got to know him. Shortly after I was born my parents smuggled me into his Hospital so that he could meet me before he passed. I'm told he was so weak he couldn't rip a square of toilet paper off a roll, yet he sat up and held me for five minutes. He passed away shortly after.

His example of duty and service is one that I pray stays with me my entire life, as they are very applicable themes when it comes to our Christian walks.

Thank you for your time.

Can I be human for a moment?

I'm a guy.

I'm tough, incapable of emotion. I am as thick as steel. Things don't get to me. I don't meet people and not like them. I'm tolerant. I like fart jokes and ponder Socrates. I consider myself stalwart and stubborn. I say I am open to new ideas and will explore anything if it ever makes more sense than Christianity, but in my heart I know I am so set in my ways that it will never happen.

I bleed but I do not hurt. I don't sweat the small stuff. I love through action, not expression. I'm a guy.

Why do I find myself feeling so emotional tonight?

I'm going through old family videos. 9 months ago for my sister/mom's birthday I thought it would be a great idea to rip all of our family videos from VHS to DVD. A healthy way to extend their longevity. Why it has taken me this long to complete the project, I don't know. Maybe I knew this would happen? I doubt it.

There are all kinds of clips on the video. Birthday parties, big news incidents (we lived in Sunfield when the silo collapsed), Easter gatherings, school plays, face paintings. All kinds of stuff.

I saw footage of my Grandpa Curby tonight. It's the first time I've really thought about him since he passed away earlier this year. Maybe it was near the end of last year, I don't really remember. It's something that for some reason I never really thought about until it hit me tonight.

We were angry with him. Grandma Betty-Ann passed away a long time ago and eventually he had met and courted a woman we came to know as "Grandma Bev." It was a big deal to me when we started calling her Grandma, but she deserved it. She was a wonderful woman. Time went on and almost out of nowhere Grandpa split from her to be with a younger woman that he met when he went out dancing.

We were upset. He would call every now and then and the parents would talk with him for a bit. We kept in better touch with Grandpa Bev. When he passed away I didn't think too much about it, since you know, we disagreed with what he had done the last few years.

Yet as I watch these videos he is in them. I smile, there is no doubt about that. It is so good to see him. We're all so much younger (lol) and he is there. There's no denying it. He was a huge part of our lives and brought us so much blessing and joy. In Sunfield if we were out and our parents wanted us to come home, his was the first number called. We knew him longer than any of our real grandparents, who all passed away while we were very young.

I've forgiven a mentor who left his family to follow his homosexuality.
I've forgiven a youth minister who I thought didn't care for me.
I've forgiven Christians who harshly and wrongly judged my sister because they didn't take the time to know her.
I've forgiven a church that even with the best intentions at heart wronged me.
I've forgiven a friend who slandered me behind my back and has never sought forgiveness or reconciliation for doing so.
I've forgiven people that I wronged when they wouldn't accept a sincere apology.
I've forgiven a friend who thought he wronged me when he never did.
I've forgiven mean kids who made middle school a terrible time.

At the end of all things, I've forgiven a grandpa that upset me, even though when you think about it I was never personally wronged.

God has taken all this and worked out into His great and perfect will. I can't look back at any of these situations with any bitterness because I know God was there through it and He has handled all of it. All of it has worked for his glory. Even the situations where I've been told I would be right or understood if I still held a grudge. I can't do it. I won't do it.

We're doing a lesson series at The Flood called "Reset" and as I think about these situations I wouldn't change any of them because they are all living testimonies to God's will, power and guidance in my life.

That feels real random, and all over the place when you think about it. I never said I was organized!

What it all comes back to is this: I teared up thinking about the amazing life I have lived so far. I've known incredible people and God used them powerfully in my life while they were in it. I know that this life is temporary. This life is nothing. I know that those I love so much, I will see them again. We will live together with God for eternity. That fills me with so much joy, with so much happiness and I can't hold it in as I watch these memories.

I will see Grandpa Curby again. I will hug him and he will say he needs a step ladder to hug me back. I will see Grandpa Earhart again, and I will meet Grandpa Jack, who died not even a month after holding me as a newborn. I will walk with my Uncle through a park. I will play with my dog in the snow. I will play dreamcast again with Kyle Rudolph.

I'm so overjoyed and excited just thinking about it. With so much to look forward to, how can anyone not be? It is overwhelming! I only hope as I live my life out that this hope and God's love continually shines out from me, so that others may know this joy and hope.

I will share with as many people as I can.