It began with a phone call early Wednesday morning conveying the news that my grandfather Jerry Austin had passed away during the night. After some quick arrangments and a few more phone calls, my parents and I left for the Des Moines area later that afternoon, where we have been since then.

The last time I saw my grandfather was a little over a month ago. Grandpa appeared healthy, so it was a surprise when he was hospitalized a short while later after suffering a seisure. Once there, an MRI revealed dementia, a fast-acting one which radically altered my grandpa in a mere few weeks time.

It will seem odd to say considering the circumstances, but I am thankful. Life is incredibly busy at the moment with Brazil travel arrangments (actually, MOVING arrangements for me!!) and wedding plans, along with follow-up to Friday night’s festivities. Still I am thankful that God, in His grace, allowed this to happen now.

Although my parents and I are still waiting for official news on our visas, we plan to leave for Brazil in just two weeks time.  Grandpa’s death would have been much more difficult on my mother had it happened while she was in Brazil, not to mention how it would taint and dampen the joy of the trip. I’m also thankful that it happened while I am still here. My grandmother has physically digressed over the past year, but along with that, I have also prepared myself for the fact that she may very well pass away before I find myself stateside again. It would not have been so with Grandpa.

I was reading about thankfulness today in Humility, True Greatness in which C.J. Mahaney encourages Christians to begin their day with gratitude instead of gumbling. He quotes Michael Ramsey who said, “Thankfulness is a soil in which pride does not easily grow.”

How true, which is why I am prone to grow more humble the closer I draw to the cross, for it is then I realize more acutely how unworthy I am and how great is my God. ”The cross never flatters us…Far from offering us flattery, the cross undermines our self-righteousness, and we can stand before it only with a bowed head and a broken spirit” (p.68) That is why Mahaney suggests to start one’s day acknowledging his dependence upon God.

Sin-including the sin of pride-is active, not passive. Sin doesn’t wake up tired
because it hasn’t been sleeping…Most of us spend more time listening to lies
than we do speaking truth to ourselves. And the listening process usually
starts as soon as we get up. The alarm has rudely interrupted the gift of sleep,
and the listening begins. A we stumble through our morning routine, we’re not
directing the thoughts in our mind-we’re simply at their mercy. We entertain
complaints about yesterday or worries about what’s coming today. We look in
the bathroom mirror and assess the damage, then brood over ow we feel.
We’re not in charge of our thinking. We’re just there. (pp.69-70)

Sorry.  Just a little rabbit trail there.

Returning to the situation at hand, I ask for and covet your prayers, especially for my mother. Grieving, while lessened by the hope we have in Christ, always involves loss; and God knows our frame, that we are but dust (Ps.103:14).  Spurgeon says in his Treasury of David, “[God] always takes our frailty into account when He is apportioning to us our lot. Blessed be his holy name for this gentleness towards his frail creatures.”

With that, pray also for my father. There’s just a lot going on with family right now, including more minor emergencies like the drain backing up Saturday night and the refrigerator breaking down Sunday morning. My “lot” currently includes a rash (very much like poison ivy) which appeared Sunday morning, after a family work day in which we removed some pine trees from the backyard. The fun just never stops at the Lundberg house!

Indeed, blessed be His name! With Him the adventure never ends. Thankfully neither does His mercy or grace!

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
…knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into His presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:1a,7-11,14-18