Follow Me

During the course of conversation last night, Gram said, “If I’m wrong, forgive me. If I’m right, follow me." Wow. I'm not sure I would ever dare to tell someone to act like me!

Gram said that we need to lead no only by words, but by example, as well. I mulled this over as she continued by telling me that it’s not wrong to ask someone to follow your lead if you are right with God. That’s a bold undertaking, but the Bible clearly backs this up. The Apostle Paul says in Philippians 4:9 – Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace will be with you.

As I was seeking advice regarding this blog from my (Florida) pastor, he sent a verse to me after reading the first few posts…Titus 2:3-5 "The aged women, likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed". The Bible has many verses that tell us to be examples for other people to follow.

One of the most poignant and greatest examples I can think of, which my Gram and Grampy gave me when I was an adolescent, was on forgiveness. This forgiveness was so complete and pure, it could only come from lives touched by the hand of God.

We were traveling, and I’m not sure exactly where we were, but we stopped at a graveyard after church. We came to a stop and we all got out of the car. I followed Grampy to a little flat stone in the ground, where he silently knelt down and began to use his car keys to dig the moss out of the embedded name and date. The name on the grave marker became apparent, and said, “Roger Earl”. We all stayed very quiet and didn’t say much in the car afterward. Somehow I understood that this was a time of reflection. I knew their first baby had died, and I knew this was his grave, but I didn’t know any more than that.

At some point later in the week, I asked Gram how Roger had died. Whenever Gram had talked of Roger before, she had said he was a strong baby, and she was amazed at how he could wiggle his way up to her chest as a newborn right in the hospital.

Back in the days when Roger was born, hospitals had the swinging “saloon style” doors between rooms and hallways. A nurse had been carrying him "football style" with his head in her hand, with the rest of his body on her arm, up to her elbow. She kicked the swinging door ahead of her with her foot, meaning to continue on through the doorway, but the door had come back to hit Roger in the head, causing him to fall out of her arms and onto the hard hospital floor.

Baby Roger lived – for a while. Gram and Grampy brought him home, and Grampy would walk miles to get him medicine as Gram cared for Roger and prayed for him without ceasing. Gram had told me that there was a point when she knew he was about to die, so she picked him up and cradled him in her arms as he breathed his last breaths. After he had passed, she laid him in the little wooden casket, which was already in her living room. I marveled that, back in those days, life was so matter-of-fact that a young, first time mother could care for her dying baby, yet already be prepared with a casket for him at the same time. In this day and age, we would probably say that would be too much to bear. It probably was, but it had to be done.

Gram and Grampy’s experience was tragic, for sure, but that’s not the end of the story. Gram went on to say that the nurse who had dropped Roger was so guilt-ridden that she couldn’t face them. She ended up with severe psychiatric problems for being responsible for the death of the baby of her dear young pastor and his wife. Grampy went to visit this nurse, and read scripture and prayed with her and for her. She was in their prayers daily. I was never told whether this woman could ever be whole again, but I was, and am, amazed at the compassion and love poured out to her by Gram and Grampy. As a young Christian couple, they held this nurse up in prayer, visiting her and praying with her - the same woman whose actions had cost them the life of their first-born son!

All my life, I loved to sit and listen to Grampy preach. Often, there was a question and answer time after the sermon or in Sunday School. Frequently, someone would ask whether babies went to heaven. Grampy would emphatically answer, “Yes!”. He would always refer to King David, who would not eat or drink, and laid on the earth and prayed for his little baby for seven days while the child was sick and dying. When David’s baby had died, he arose from the earth, cleaned himself up, worshipped and ate. His servants asked him why he fasted and wept while the baby was alive, but when the child died, David got up and ate. David said, “While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return unto me (II Samuel 12:22, 23).

How precious and deeply personal that passage must have been to Grampy! He always quoted those verses with such conviction and passion! He knew he would go to his baby son someday. What a reunion it must have been on November 26, 1995 when Grampy went home to be with the Lord on a Sunday just before morning services began here on earth!

As Gram said last night, “If I’m wrong, forgive me. If I’m right, follow me.”

We can all learn a lesson on forgiveness from a young pastor and his wife who clung to the promises of their Lord during the darkest moments in life. Not only did they continue to serve God, they went on to offer love and forgiveness to someone who was suffocating from the guilt and grief of a mistake that would cost her pastor the life of his only child!

Jesus asked the Father to forgive those who took His life at the cross. Jesus, God's only begotten Son. His example is worth following!