25/05/2025
One of the things I’ll always remember most about my Grandaddy is that he liked to have fun, and he loved having fun with us. He was sort of legendary, in my mind, for buying and selling big toys-sell his fishing boat, buy a pontoon boat. Sell the pontoon boat, buy a camper, put it at the lake, and then the four wheeler needed to be exchanged for a jet ski!
And he always joked about spending his girls’ inheritance while he was still around to watch them enjoy it. And we REALLY did enjoy it!
But when I think about the inheritance he really left us, it’s something far more valuable than anything money can buy. The true inheritance that he leaves behind is a life that was devoted to Jesus. He taught his 4 girls to love and obey the Lord, they taught the 8 of us, and now we are teaching our children. As a parent now myself, I can see that what he did was no easy feat. Balancing grace and love with teaching obedience and discipline is a challenge, but a challenge he fulfilled very well.
The qualities of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control, he embodied every single one of them. And sometimes, self-control especially, like when certain grandchildren ate a bunch of pringles in his bed and left behind the crumbs to prove it. Or when we slept over the night before church and talked and giggled well past midnight while he tried to sleep.
My Grandaddy was a lover of the simple things in life. Fishing on a quiet lake, strumming a guitar with his people around him singing, and good food. But he had a deep love - for Jesus and for us - that was far from simple. And that’s the best inheritance we could ever ask for.
