Stories

     Visiting their house in Robbinsdale on Sunday afternoons was as predictable as the sun rising each day. Climbing the white wooden stairs up to their one-bedroom home brought me into a world of good food, laughter and broken English. My grandparents on my mom’s side, Pella and Ole (don’t you love it?) made me feel special and cherished.

     Do you have wise and caring elders in your life? Pella and Ole have been gone for decades now, but I still picture them, Grandpa in his workshop as he made me picture frames and bowls out of hundreds of popsicle sticks. He made red and white windmills to put in the backyard for my grandma. She loved the color red. No one could ever imitate my grandma’s homemade rolls after she was gone and she could never give us the exact recipe when she was still on earth. It was “a little bit of this and a little bit of that.”

     They called me, “Yudy.” Pella talked most often about “her Jesus.” As she rocked in her wooden rocking chair with the red cushions, she read her Swedish Bible hour after hour. I have that worn Bible in my possession. I can’t read the words, but I know she poured over that Book for hours on end and prayed for all of us as she did. She sang hymns all day long as she knit her woolen scarves and mittens for her large family.

Speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord. Ephesians 5:19

     My grandma would tell me of the day the whole family went to a Billy Graham tent meeting, one of his first. It was somewhere around 1950, maybe a little earlier. Pella, Ole, Margaret (my mom) and their other three children would take Jesus into their hearts on that summer day. I have always had a soft spot for Billy Graham when I think of all of the lives he has changed as he presents the gospel of Jesus to the world.

     Jesus shaped Pella and Ole’s lives and they helped to shape mine. That’s what happens when we meet the Lord. The seeds we carry in our hearts are planted along the way into the lives of others. Pella taught me what was good.

Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine but to teach what is good.  Titus 2:3

Dear Father,

Thank you for the older men and women of faith. They have known you for so long and have great wisdom to share. Help us to take in what is good to share with our families just as Pella and Ole did for me. I am blessed.

In Jesus name,

Amen