He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord, reflections of my Grandpa.

Part 1 :

I do not tear up easily, but as I started reflecting on this, and understandings started becoming clear to me,
I have been balling like a baby.

My eighth grade year we had grandparents day , that is where students reminisce and bring glorious stories of the accomplishements of their grandparents, and if their grandparents are still alive they might invite them to come to visit.

As you can imagain everyone has grandparents that have heroic adventures or amazing accomplishments in which their grandchildren can glory in.

I had the most meek, humble, gental, loving, unselfish, do anything for you grandpa that anyone has ever had.
I was always well aware of that.
But when it came to show and tell, For a public schooled nonborn again 8th grade boy, whom was hyper self-conscious always trying to give off a glorious false image of self, in hopes of being excepted.
My living grandpa just had nothing glorious to offer. I was not ashamed of him, It would not of bothered me to have been seen with him, but their was nothing glorious that I could see in him to share for grandparents day.

He did not live on a big farm as many grandparents do, instead he lived in a very small house on a small lot in town, that was very unglorious to me at the time.
Now the idea that he would have had a small farm that he had worked hard to pay for or keep through the depression or hard times as what many grandparents had, now I could of found much to glory in that, but that was not the case.

Many peoples grandparents had started businesses, became entrepreneurs, inventers, fought wars, became doctors and laywers, built homes, been mechanics ect.

None of this was my grandpa, he worked at a factory most of his life. not much to glory in that,
His entire life savings was about $1,500 in which he invested and ended up loosing a great amount of that. Their was no wealth to glory in

So when my mom was eager to invite my grandparents to grandparents day, I choose rather to tell about some heroic stories of my great grandparents on the other side of the family whom I never new and whoms stories where probably half fetched anyhow. and I choose not to invite my only living grandparents.

As the years went by, I became busy with life, busy with girlfriends, busy with school, busy with friends, busy with work, even busy with church. I did not have much time to visit with my grandparents whom lived relatively close.

A deep respect always lingered in my heart for them but with little to glory in them with, other than my grandpa's pure compassionate heart. I did not have much interest in spending much time visiting with them.

A few years ago my grandpa died of cancer, around that same time I was visiting a good friend of mine whom was staying at his grandpas house while he was home from the military
My friends grandpa had worked with my grandpa for probably over 20 years at the factory.

My friends grandpa was a staunch COC, my grandfather was an ex COC.
Staunch COC are very Sectarianism when it comes to believing that non COC are saved, my friends grandpa was no exception. so I found it profound what he said to me.

He said Jack (my grandpa) had the patience of Job.

My grandpa never lived in a hostile nation, he was never physicaly beaten for his faith, he never was jailed or physically hurt, as far as I am aware for his faith, but the bible says : 2 Timothy 3:12
Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution

My friends grandpa said : Jack had the patience of Job.
he said we never seen Jack loose his composure.
he said we always Wondered if Jack was really real or if he was just that good at controlling himself.
He said all those years we would harrass and pick on him trying to figure out if he really was that patient or if he was just that good at controlling his composure.
My friends grandpa said Jack never snapped, he always took it well and never got upset,. (Years and years of harrassement day after day he endured , and he took it paitently, never being offended or taking it personal)

honestly I do not know which it was, His heart was not divinely perfect, he was absolutly human he was not overtly mystical, But as I have begain to reflect on his life, I am reliezing that his life was somewhat a fullfillment of 2 Corinthians 3:2
Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:

I have a ton more to write, and hope to continue
as so much more is being revealed to me, of what I once thought was attributes of weakness I am now realizing was instead Christ likeness.

to be continued ...

one of many reflections no particular order.

One of the things for me that was instrumental when it came to laying hold of the promises of God personally and rescuing me from a Crisis, was an absolute trust in Gods Sovereign hand with inspiring each word in the KJV for the English speaking people.
So afterwards I was quite Zealous about promoting the KJV probably even a bit obnoxious at times.

My Grandpa was using the NIV, so I took him a book "Which version is the Bible by Floyd Nolen Jones. This was not uncommon of me, but my grandpa's response was uncommon.
He did not try to refute anything within the book, he simply read it, and afterwards asked me if there was anyone whom might want his NIV, otherwise he would throw it in the trash and he threw it away.
His response kind of shocked me, I expected atleast a little attempt at a refutation from his part.

All this time, I had thought that grandpa must have just been easy to convince of things,
as I started reflecting about his life it became more than evident that grandpa had responded the way that he did,, not because I had so convinced him of the necessity of using the KJV,, but that he seen that I was growing in the Lord and that he did not want to be a stumbling block in that growth, The Promises that I had just recently laid claim to, he had recieved decades before.

All this time I had attributed how easy it was to convince him, as almost a weakness. Not reliezing that he was just willing to set his opinion of the subject aside so as not to hinder my faith.

Did you miss part two?

Hope you continue with the reminiscing...