| Isaiah 46:4 – “I will be your God throughout your lifetime— until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.” |
As a child and through my teen years, I attended a tiny country church in rural Iowa. The average weekly attendance ranged from about 40 to maybe 80 on a special Sunday. Among this small group was a very special man named Russell, who was about the age of my grandfathers (one of whom died when I was almost five and the other just before I turned 10.) Russell was a lovely, kind, and gentle man, and before long I had developed a friendship and relationship with him as he took on a grandfatherly role in my life. I loved listening to him talk, pray, and sing. He was hard working and cared faithfully for his wife and family. One week my Sunday School class was challenged to ‘adopt a grandma or grandpa’ and I made sure I got to Russell first before any of my friends could grab him. We all went out to lunch at a nice restaurant, and I was proud to sit by his side and get a hug when lunch was over.
What was it about Russell that attracted me to him so? Besides being kind and funny, and eternally patient with me as a little girl, he radiated God’s love to me and to everyone around him. He practiced God’s instructions for living in peace with others, for being truthful and kind, and for how to yield to God’s leading in our lives. Russell’s wife had health struggles and passed away while I was in college. But he never left her side, and never treated her with anything but love and respect. He lived many more years after her passing, and long after his hair was gray and he walked slowly and painfully, his life still radiated with God’s love and presence. More than 60 years have passed since I first met him, but his influence remains.
I’m one of the older ones now, with gray hair and limited physical abilities of my own. I can only hope that others can see God radiating through me the way I could with Russell. I pray that someday someone will say “I saw God in her life, and my life is different because of it.”
Dear God, thank you for Russell and other men and women like him who have had an impact on me over the years. Help me to be an influence in the world to those who are younger. I want to reflect your love, today and always. Amen.
– Betty Gossell
