Grandma H, who has been a regular attendee since the beginning of our weekly visits, is someone who greatly appreciates our presence and the weekly Sunday worship service. She has been reading the bible and has been growing in her desire to know more.
On New Year’s Day Sunday, the sermon was on Isaiah 43:18-19 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! …” In starting a new year, I talked about how we can look back at 2010 and might be filled with a lot of regrets, hurts, sadness, etc. but that because of Christ we can actually take these words in the Bible to heart.
Whenever I mention confession, admitting that we are sinners and needing to make a clear decision to accept Christ, she would ALWAYS turn her head and look out of the window instead of looking at me. But on this Sunday, as I talked about how we can have a relationship with God but how we need to admit our brokenness, I was surprised to see her still listening and watching me very closely.
Using an illustration that I remembered from when I was in the youth group, I described our lives as a big blank piece of paper that God gives us. And as we live our lives, and as we draw out how we live, it’s nice, within the lines, pretty, but then when we sin, it’s like spilling paint on it, smearing and smudging our drawing. So we try to erase it, we try to make up for it, make it better. But what often happens is that we end up making it even worse by trying to use that eraser to take away the ugliness, and we end up tearing the paper! So we again try to patch it up by taping it, but the wrinkles and tears are still there even though we try to fix things, we try to “fix” our lives. She laughed, raised her hand and nodded in agreement pointing to herself.
After the service, she told Elaine that she wanted to accept Christ. Elaine went through all the basic elements of the gospel and as she is not a person of very many words, she nodded her head and agreed that she is a sinner, wanted to ask for forgiveness and accept Christ as her Lord and Savior. I am so thankful for Grandma H’s decision.
