Mabel
married a handsome young man and they started their life together. But Mabel
and her new husband weren’t Christians. Mabel decided she needed to find a
church because she was pregnant and she wanted her kids to go to church even if
she never went when she was a kid.
Mabel
tried a church in their town in Ohio but it was a Pentecostal church and it was
a bit too crazy for her. So then she thought she’d try the little Church of
Christ in town.
After
the first Sunday the preacher met with her and showed her a simple illustration
with a pencil that had been all chewed up and he took a napkin and covered the
pencil. He told her that is exactly what Christ does to our sin. He covers our
sin.
This
is Mabel from just a couple years ago. Mabel Irene Sheridan. My grandmother, my
hero. She is a beautiful person both inside and out. And listen, Sunday after
Sunday, month after month she took her kids to church. Year after year, decade
after decade my grandma went to church with her family and she did the very
best that she could. She is the reason I stand up to preach every week.
My
grandma is one of the most beautiful women I have ever known and she is the
reason I will be in heaven one day. Her health is now failing. I feel helpless
but not hopeless. I have no doubts about my grandmother’s eternal destiny.
I
am grateful for my grandmother’s ceaseless prayers for me and all of her
grandchildren. Her deepest desire is that her children and grandchildren will
be in heaven. She won’t see all of them, but she will see this one again
someday.
My prayer is that her children and grandchildren will desire
to see her again someday as well. They can but they have to enter through the
same door that she did. It is only through faith in Christ Jesus that anyone
can go to heaven. The same faith that I hold on to in a sincere manner…the
faith that was first in my grandmother. (2 Timothy 1:5)
