Today’s Word from Pastor Tom Kidd….
Nels, my grandfather, was born in 1894. At his tallest, he was maybe 5’9” but in my memory he was a giant. A simple dirt farmer on the Minnesota prairies, Grandpa Nels, along with Ida, raised 7 children to adulthood, buried two infants (baptizing one of them himself) and helped shape a county for eternity. He was a giant. He was also what I call “Norwegian farmer funny.”
I was maybe five the year we traveled from Seattle to Minnesota to celebrate Christmas. My only Christmas on the farm. To support their own family, every farm had a little bit of everything. On this particular day, I was struggling through the snow to keep up with Grandpa to accomplish morning chores. Somewhere between milking the cows, collecting eggs, and feeding the chickens, we passed by the pig pen. The boar had mounted the sow. I am a city kid, not a farm kid.
I asked Grandpa what they were doing. Without missing a beat, he said, “The one is broken down, and the other one is towing him in.” We moved on. Do you know what an idiot I looked like in Junior High? As I think back, I believe there was just the hint of a smile on Nels’ sometimes-stoic demeanor.
I have many memories of my Grandfather. He was a giant. One summer, just as a gull dropped a message next to us on the tractor, he told how one of them once got him on the lips. “Oooooo,” I exclaimed, “Grandpa, what was that like?” He chuckled, “Kind of salty.”
Grandpa was a giant, not just because of his sometimes-silly humor, but because, however unwittingly, he was a teacher. “Grandpa, I can’t get the first furrow straight.” You’ve got to get the first furrow straight. But that rock or tree a quarter mile out there I was aiming for wouldn’t hold still. They appeared to move. “Look back,” he said. “Huh?” “Look back,” he repeated. “If there is a wow in the furrow straighten, it out.” A “wow.”
Funny how a simple conversation becomes a life lesson. I learned that whenever the future looks uncertain, where options do not offer a seemingly straight line, I look back. Was God’s grace sufficient yesterday? Was I given whatever I needed to get through that last crisis? When I look back, the answer is always “Yes.”
Covid-19 is making our future look uncertain. The daunting realities of this pandemic are legitimately making us anxious about tomorrow. Look back. “Lo, I am with you always… even unto the end.” Jesus yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Jesus has never failed to gift us with grace sufficient.
Fearful of tomorrow? Look back. There might loom for you the memory of a giant that can remind you of God’s faithfulness.
Pastor Tom Kidd
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