In the picture the old guy in the laurel-billed cap is GG, my grandpa, looking over a chilly river with his son. GG’s life, or rather his life before his death, taught me about hope and faith in the heart of a Christ-follower. I know faith, we believe God will heal our sick and guide our choices, but in the backs of our frail hearts we HOPE these things happen, that His will and our lives will align.

My grandpa’s life taught me that hope and faith can’t be separated, because for a long time I gave up HOPE that he would find Jesus.

GG survived the Depression, fought in World War II and lived a life I can barely imagine. As a kid he put bullets in a vice and hit them with a hammer, the explosion caused his thumbnail to grow in two parts. He taught us things and took us fishing and made stained glass art. One night he tried to show us how to make newspaper hot-air balloons, a trick he’d seen in France during the war. “You fold up the newspaper, pin it at the bottom and light it.” We did, many times, but we never got the balloons to rise more than head-high, we couldn’t get them above the low trees around the lake (the French must have had lighter newspaper.)

GG was opposed to the concept of God, it didn’t make intellectual sense to him that God could exist, considering all the horrible things he’d seen in the war and in his life. He didn’t like Christians, and didn’t like that my Dad’s need to spread the gospel took my Mom away from the U.S. for five years. He was from a proud, independent generation and he was a singular man.

My Mom prayed for GG all the time. For years she prayed, occasionally engaging him in careful conversation about God. My Dad prayed too and for a long time I did also, many times I ended prayer with “…and Lord please bring GG to You.” But in high school I started “growing up,” and came to think there was no hope for him. “He’s so stubborn, he’ll NEVER change,” I thought. So I stopped praying for him and went about my life. But my Mom never gave up hope, she prayed on; I could say she prayed on in faith, which is true, but if I’m honest I know faith and certainty merge only occasionally in our vulnerable souls. This is hope, and my mother held on to it.

GG’s health declined, he had congestive heart problems and suffered for years, unable to move around, unable to eat more than the simplest, sodium and fat free foods, unable sometimes to remember what was going on or who was around him. Towards the end, about a year before he died, GG found Christ, and from the way he approached it I believe it was a genuine conversion. Despite this, at his funeral I was overwhelmed with guilt, knowing I gave up faith AND hope, that I stopped praying for him, that I hadn’t given God enough credit to be able to soften a proud man’s heart. I know prayer affects change, and GG may have found Christ regardless of my prayers, but as his grandson I had given up, and that burned.

GG will be a constant reminder to me that I should never, ever give up on someone, never give up praying and having faith in God’s power, that I should never give up hope. A few months after GG died I remembered the newspaper balloons we tried to make, and I imagined GG’s soul floating upwards, the hot air and the breeze lifting him up towards heaven and the God I was so glad he found.

Don’t give up Hope.