Flashback Friday: Grace

As an assignment for speech class, Scott had to pick someone who is alive, to write a eulogy for... a tribute to. He picked his Grandma.

A picture that Keona took of "Oma" a few Sundays ago between church services.



“Danny.. Danny.”

“What Mom?”

“Danny, I'm going to Heaven next Sunday night, and I want you to come and see.”

“Huh?”

“I'm in a play at church next Sunday. I'm going to heaven. Will you come and watch me?”


Grace. I owe SO much to Grace.


On August 19th, 1931 my sweet little Grandma Grace was born in London Ontario. Eventually settling on a farm in Campbellford Ontario; where she raised 6 very loved children. Today after much strife as a single mother, fighting poverty and just about everything else the world could hurl, 17 great grandchildren look to her for leadership. She is our patriarch. Grace is our lovely queen.


Most could never imagine the incredible burdens my Grandma held in check each day. Yet she always shone with a cheer and delight. She has never had much, and yet she has always found a way to give far more than asked.


She has an interesting way of looking at things. I can recall, as an 8 year old child, an object lesson. My sister and I were fighting, loudly, as usual. Then, in comes Grandma Grace with a broom and begins to swing it around batting the empty air yelling "Get out! Get out!" She would beat this invisible beast towards the exit, and then, as she opened the door, would make one final swing to hit him outside. "Get OUT!" She yelled, as she slammed the door shut and turned to look at us. My sister and I sat silent....


"Grandma are you okay?"
"I'm just getting that old devil outta here." She replied.

At the end of the 1970's, Grandma Grace and her two youngest sons moved to Victoria British Columbia on the west coast of Canada. Having trusted Christ several years before at an old church in Campbellford, she sought far and wide to find a church to attend in Victoria BC. As a testimony to her sincerity, she found Capitol City Baptist church, a small Independent Baptist work Pastored by an old Texan. That church began praying for my family, just as I was about to enter into this world. In 1980, my parents followed Grandma Grace to Victoria.

It was an answer to prayer.


She tried again and again to win my father to Christ. He was a hard man. Most would have considered him beyond saving. But not his loving mother. In spite of the curses, hard looks, threats and tears, she pressed him to trust Christ. After months of prayer she tried once again to get Danny to church.


“Danny, will you come watch me go to heaven in a play next Sunday?”
“We'll see,” was the response.

But something miraculous happened that next Sunday in my father's heart. He got my mother up, bundled his 8 month old son, and surprised Grandma Grace by showing up for church that cold December morning. That morning my mother and father walked the aisle and trusted Jesus Christ as Saviour.


I owe so much to Grace.

Oma with 5 of our kids, just after Jeddy was born in October 2006.