Pillar of Faith

I'm at a large church staff conference this week down in AL and found myself thinking about my Grandma Maureen. Now I know that I don't think of her nearly enough or talk to her as much as I should but there are 2 reasons she has been on my mind the past day and a half: 1) she had a successful hip replacement surgery yesterday and 2) throughout our worship times today we sang a couple classic hymns that I can vividly remember her singing when I was much younger. A couple of the hymns that instantly time-warp me back to being in kindergarten and 1st grade are "He Lives", "How Great Thou Art", "And Can It Be that I Should Gain", and especially "Victory in Jesus". It's almost as if I can hear her singing them right now as she stands in her kitchen cooking goulash or doing dishes as I sit here in my hotel room. As we sang these hymns today in our worship time, I found myself almost moved to tears thinking about the impact my Grandma has made on my life and most importantly on my relationship with Christ. If it was not for her love, persistence and constant singing I'm not sure I would have ever come to walk with Jesus as close as I walk with Him today. She has always been and continues to be a pillar of faith in my life. And like the pillar of cloud and fire that went before the Israelites as God brought them out of slavery in Egypt, I think God puts people in our lives to be pillars of faith for us, giving us strong shoulders of prayer to lean on in times of confusion, doubt, fear and uncertainty. It is through my Grandma being a pillar of faith that she helps me see that there is an even stronger pillar on which I can lean, the pillar of Jesus Christ! And through the example she leads of a life dedicated to Christ, I know the truth in the words of the great hymn I can hear her singing even now, "He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow ways...you ask me how I know He lives, He lives within my heart"