i was very blessed to have been to have had grandparents most of my adult life like they just
lived a long time and my grandmother was i was really close with my grandmother and she um
was a real bookworm that's what we called the book room she was part of book clubs
and on the library board and so very into books and i think she was one of the triggers for me
with books so i we would talk about books to read we would read together so we are into books and so
when i started writing books then she just that was the best thing for her because now i'm you
know in that world even more so very close and so it was really sad for me um so she knew what
i did right past her to church and in every one of my books that she had read she was my biggest
cheerleader and any in every one of them it talks about the love of god and encountering the love of
god we would have conversations when i would visit and she was a part of a church you know a pretty
formal denomination but in her heart she just thought all roads lead to god i'm pretty sure
and um so i would you know ask questions and and then she got brain cancer and died
and i wasn't sure if she had crossed the line like with jesus and i was asked to do her funeral
and i came to the house and before the funeral and i met the the caregiver the woman who had
you know been hospice to her in her home like she my grandma was in her home but the lady
that took care of her and she looked at me and and she said would you like me to tell
you about your grandmother and i went yes i would and she said well let me just tell you i
showed i love jesus and i sat in the room and i would kind of pray
you know and at the chair by the end of the bed i would just kind of pray under my
breath and the first night your grandmother said you can stop that i don't need that i
don't need that and she so then i just prayed quietly just like so she couldn't hear me and
then the next night i would try again she was no no i don't need that i don't need that just
and then she said about the third or fourth night um she wasn't sleeping she was tossing
and turning and i went to her and i said what's going on and my grandmother said to her i'm afraid
and so this lovely caregiver said i can help you to not be afraid do you want to not be afraid
and my grandmother said yes and i'm uh getting emotional and so this lady grabbed her hand and
uh prayed my grandmother into the kingdom and led her to jesus and then the next day she died
and so i just think we don't know
the last moments of someone's life and i you know just like we mentioned those days before
you could be the person that somebody i was praying for somebody to talk to
i'd done my part right for somebody and here's this this lovely woman in the end of her life
leading my grandmother and so when she told me the story i just hugged and cried and thanked her i
said i can never repay you for what you should you don't need to pay me so now just the thought
that i'm gonna get to see my grandmother eternity right because this woman just loved her there just
took that time in that moment and prayed her there so i just say don't ever give up hope with people
amen because you don't know the end of their life i think god can make himself known to people right
and he did with my grandmother he used this lovely woman but who who knows i i'm not going to limit
how god reaches people right i just it just was even more of a challenge for me like i mentioned
before to be that person right to be that person that somebody's praying for their friends and
their family members and i want to be that person right to have my heart open to be that person so
yeah don't ever give up hope with people i think it's so beautiful holly thanks
for sharing that story i think one of the beautiful truths that your story exposes
and all of your stories expose is that we are not alone in wanting our loved ones to know god
that we do not carry that burden alone that god loves our loved ones even more than we do
and that there is a way for every single person alive to know how much god loves them
god is so gracious that he's made a way for everyone to know him and we're 100 a part of
his plan and i think we need to rest in the truth that it is not on us to save everyone around us
it is not on us to save the world the pressure to be a savior is not on us jesus is the savior of
the world he's the one who saves souls and heals lives and redeems marriages and restores families
he has the power that we don't there is a story that we hear about jesus in the bible that i had
like kind of a new revelation about this year it's a story we often called the good samaritan
and we hear this story of a man who asked jesus what do i have to do to inherit eternal life
because jesus was saying believing in him was enough to be saved and this guy wanted a list of
things to check and things to do in order to earn salvation so jesus tells him of a story of a man
who is beat up on the side of the road and a priest passes him by and the levite passes him
by and then a samaritan comes and brings them to an inn and tells the innkeeper i will give you
all the money and resources you need to restore them back to life you know i have a credit card
with no limit anything you need i can get to you for you to help restore this man back to life
and i love this story and it will preach we need to be more like the good samaritan right we need
to pay attention to the people who are on the side of the road who are in our lane who are hurting
we don't want to walk by them we don't want to ignore them we want to be aware
but what happens when we can't pay the medical bills for every single person that we come across
and what happens when we feel the pressure of the world to be the savior of the world to be
the good samaritan for every single person and when we feel like we can't do everything perfectly
we are tempted to do nothing at all what do we do then well saint augustine makes the case that we
are many times the innkeepers in this story that this story is not a story about good guys and bad
guys it's a story about a specific guy jesus that jesus is the good samaritan in the story and while
this one guy was asking jesus what do i have to do to be saved jesus said there's nothing you can do
i am the good samaritan i rescue people and i bring them to the end i have all the resources
i have all the money i have all the ways for people to know god and while we are at our
ends this will say in augustine's point was that perhaps we are the innkeepers and as
god brings people into our lives with what we have where we are are we being available at our
end at our post at our soccer games at our place of work with our family at our dinner table
we don't have the pressure of the saving the world on our shoulders god has not given you
a mandate to save he's called you to love a world that he has saved and where what can
we do where we are jesus is the savior of the world and we're just called to partner with you
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