I couldn’t stop crying.
Absolutely nothing I tried would stop the tears from flowing.
It wasn’t even a sad moment; it was one of the happiest moments of my life! But even though I usually can do a fairly decent job of hiding my emotions, I have always been a crier. Especially during extremely happy times.
But then I heard something that I had never heard before: “Who giveth this man…”
The pastor quickly fixed his mistake and asked the bride’s father the traditional question with the right terminology, but it was too late. A huge smile spread across his face as the room erupted in laughter, and I finally was able to stop crying.
In that brief moment, my future father-in-law gave me my partner for life, but not before my grandfather gave me a memory for life.
My grandpa gave me so many reasons to smile for over three decades, but that one on June 1, 2019, is definitely one of my favourites.
As I look back on life though, Grandpa did more than just provide smiles. He had a profound impact on who I am today as a person.
God has blessed me with many amazing pastors- over a dozen of them. I will not list them here, but the people close to me have a good idea of who most of these men are.
What I love about my pastors is that they did more than just give me content. Yes, I have heard many sermons, devotionals, and Sunday School lessons from them. But it is not the preaching that I remember.
What I remember most is how they loved me and invested in me.
They invited me to their homes to eat and to sleep. Some of them even let me live in their homes for extended periods of time!
They taught me how to raise a family, how to work, and how to invest my money.
They taught me how to memorize Scripture, how to prepare Bible studies, and how to lead music in church services.
They taught me how to get out of my comfort zone and invest in other people.
But no pastor invested in me as much as Grandpa.
He started by investing first in his family and my parents before I was even born. After I entered the world, he continued to invest in me.
When I was a child, he spent so much time with me when we visited. He took me on his paper route, he brought me into the ditches to pick up pop cans, he taught me how to catch night crawlers, he took me fishing, he showed me his trapping route, and he took me up north to sell the skins from his trapping.
He always talked about God’s goodness and his desire for me to follow God too and experience that goodness. He always had a joke to tell based on whatever was happening that day.
He taught me the importance of faithfully following God and trusting his provision no matter what happened in life.
For many years he was just family, but for a year in college, he also became a colleague when he invited me to join him at his church as the Sunday song leader. Such a responsibility required a 6-hour roundtrip every weekend for several months, but it was a wonderful privilege. Each week he would tell me his sermon so that I could plan the order of service, and then we would spend Sunday serving together and spending time together at his house.
It’s one thing to watch someone do ministry for years, but it’s a greater joy to do it together with them!
The one thing that kept Grandpa going in life was the next opportunity to minister to someone. Whether that was teaching on Sunday or visiting someone during the week, he wanted nothing more than to keep investing in people and telling them about God.
I am extremely blessed to have a family in which all of my grandparents were amazing, godly people that invested so much in me. I wouldn’t be the same person without any of them.
But my Grandpa Gonnerman was unique in that he was a pastor, not just to others, but also to me.
Because of that, he could participate in some of the most significant events in my life. He baptized me as a child, he personally helped me prepare to be a pastor, and he was the one in my wedding who helped me stop crying (albeit only for a moment).
In my opinion, his many investments paid off; not just in my life, of course, but also in countless other lives.
My favourite pastor has finally retired, and today he enjoys the fruits of his labour. By God’s grace, the compound interest from his investments will continue to pay dividends in his absence.
Once more I can’t help but cry.
But Grandpa has given me a reason to smile.
“So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.'” – 1 Corithinthians 15:54