Celebrating Grandpa!

As many of you who know my family heard, my Grandpa passed away almost 2 weeks ago.

We had a family service today to celebrate his wonderful life so I deemed it appropriate to blog about it :)

 By 94 years old he had enjoyed an amazingly full life of God's love, mercy, and grace.

Today we had just a family gathering and I really loved hearing my dad and uncles walk us through grandpa's life. Everything from serving in WWII to shenanigans with his family it was full of wonderful memories and new stories. He was a shrewd business man and entrepreneur, but really was a developer at heart. I remember even as a toddler that entrepreneur mentality was taught to me by him as he told me to collect all the snails outside his house for a quarter each. And as we remembered today, he mostly was a developer of people. I only had seen the tip of the ice berg in this area and have learned recently how private he was about his giving (sorry gpa now I'm blogging about it :/ ) But it was such a blessing to hear of how many people he invested his time, resources and finances to as he helped enable them in life. I can even remember just a few years back he was walking around our property checking out the newest projects Jeremy was working on in our house. 

He and my Granny (yes that's what we have always called her and it never seemed weird to me until my friends would giggle whenever I said it!) would be celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary this year and I think it's hilarious that they drove to Reno in the snow on a dare to get married. So you can keep her in your thoughts and prayers as I can't imagine losing your life partner after so long.

Today was a great celebration and I pray that as I have been challenged today to do -- that I will continue to do -- is be able to S.T.O.P from the madness sometimes that is our life and look around and see the PEOPLE around me in need of God's love, mercy and grace. Relationships trump tasks and souls matter more than any projects that rule our day. I long to invest my time effectively in people and not get so busy in my own bubble of my own world that I miss out on the joy of blessing others. 

From today's sharing time at my parent's house

Oates' cousins :)  

Kiddos kiddos kiddos!