I had some unique and wonderful grandmothers… both of them… and in my typical Billy Arnold story telling fashion, I have some fun stories about them. But this story is from the life of my maternal grandmother is helping me shape the sermon I’m going to bring this coming Sunday morning. Bear with me, there is a point here:
Grandma Holleman had 5 children with my grandfather; 3 boys and 2 girls. My mom was the oldest girl and second oldest child. My grandfather was a rancher, farmer, and cattleman all of his life who only finished the 8th grade in school but was a smart and savvy successful rancher and farmer. He spent his evenings by the radio smoking a pipe and listening to the daily prices of beef and crops on the farm radio station. Grandma was a highly educated schoolteacher before she got married at 29, and eventually after the kids grew up went on to get a master’s degree in education and taught special ed until she was quite old. She also loved the Lord deeply, was a great Bible student and was a Sunday School teacher until she was 92 (she lived to 99 ½). She was cute, witty, funny and tenacious.
During the growing up years of those 5 children grandma cooked three square meals a day for the kids, her husband, and her father-in-law (my great grandpa) who lived next door. She was very much a mom who raised an active family… but was especially challenged by three energetic and onery boys. Apparently, my uncles were always causing problems and creating disruptions in the house. They would disturb everyone (especially their sisters), create havoc whenever they could, interrupting grandma in her duties, adding drama to most situations, and generally making life almost impossible to live in any sense of normalcy. My mom has always told me that when grandma (her mom) had finally just had her fill of it all she would sit down in the middle of chaos she would just start singing. And what song did she sing? Her favorite was…
“Some glad morning when this life is over, I’ll fly away.
To a land on God’s celestial shores, I’ll fly away.
I’ll fly away old glory, I’ll fly away!
When I die Hallelujah by and by, I’ll fly away.”
When grandma had reached the end of her rope, she just sang loud and proud… “I can’t take it anymore… please Lord take me home now!” Mom tells me that the kids would start crying and go to their mom and say… “please mom, don’t leave us…. I promise we’ll behave, just don’t leave!” Grandma believed deeply in the return of Christ, and she was just begging God to please return NOW in the middle of the miserable moment.
This Sunday May 3rd, I’m bringing a message about the end of all we know, “The 2nd Coming of Christ.” It would be easy for me to spend weeks and weeks on this subject, but there is a simplicity to it that I want to get at. The major point to be understood is no secret. There will be a very specific time, a time that we cannot predict or know, when Christ will visibly and truly return to us. It is not a puzzle to be figured out. It is not a secret truth that some ‘false prophet’ has figured out on their own. But it really will occur. I will address this on Sunday for sure.
But what else do we need to know? We need to know how to live now with that absolute truth of His final return that will come. I will look at a handful of important Bible passages this Sunday. But there are two places you need to spend some time looking at and meditating over before you come to study together with your church family… Acts 1:6-11 and Revelation chapter 19. My grandmother essentially was singing in her weary moments the essence of Revelation 19. Will you be doing the same? See you Sunday morning as we worship together.
