Sorrow

Last night, my Grandpa Chuck finally succumbed to the cancer in his body and died. If anybody didn’t know, he has had cancer for about 6 months or so. It began as a tumor in his brain, but spread to his entire body while he was undergoing chemotherapy. It was supposedly in remission for a few months, but 3 weeks ago we found out it was back. He has been in a lot of pain ever since then so I guess it is better that he is out of pain. Also, if anybody knew my grandfather, you probably knew that he was one of the few members of our family that was not a Christian. After he was diagnosed with cancer, my family had a hard time with the news mainly for that reason.

However, 2 weeks ago my mother and sister Renee flew to Texas to be with my grandpa. They shared the gospel with him many times while they were there, but he didn’t seem to be responding to it. Last week, my grandpa’s wife, Lori, called us to say that my grandpa had woken up in the middle of the night and was scared of the “darkness” all around him. She shared the gospel with him once more and she told us that afterwards he said he finally believed it and had faith in God. I believe that God may have been using the “darkness” to make my grandfather aware of the consequences of his lifetime of sin. There would be no joy or light for him in the afterlife if he didn’t recognize his sinfulness, repent of it and have faith that Christ has forgiven him. The fact that this seems so strange and almost extreme may be a good thing though. I believe it indicates that my grandfather’s heart was extremely hardened but that the Holy Spirit may have been working in it and softening it. I really can’t think of any other explanation for what my grandfather experienced that night. Obviously, I can’t see into my grandpa’s heart, and I guess we can’t ever know for sure about anybody. But I have been praying all last week that my grandpa really did come to Christ and that God would be using his last few weeks on earth to reveal Himself to my grandpa.

Well, this has been a very strange day for me. Nobody I’ve known has ever died before. I always feared the day that somebody I loved would die. But even then, I had always hoped it would be easier with the knowledge that that person had gone to heaven and I would see them again. The fact that my grandfather spent his entire life running from God makes this whole situation much harder, but I find comfort in the fact that God is sovereign over all things and perfectly just. He’s also infinitely merciful and loving and more than capable to perform a miracle in my grandpa’s heart and I trust Him with everything. God is still good and I’m glad to be alive and thankful for all of the blessings in my life… especially the people in it!!

Also, below I’ve posted something I wrote yesterday before I learned my grandfather probably would only live a few more hours. So it’s in a completely different tone than this post, but in case you were wondering how we spent our weekend, you will know.