Tribute by Deanna Holsinger

Sorting out a complex jumble of memories and feelings from the storehouse of a lifetime. When small, your parents loom larger than life—All powerful, All knowing, All controlling. The very fabric of your life is woven from the threads of their approval, their disapproval, their big and small decisions.

When I was growing up, Dad’s rule was absolute. His was the window through which I viewed the world. It was only as I grew older and my world expanded to catch glimpses from other windows that I started to perceive some of the distortions that skewed his, and therefore my, window on the world. Of course, my own perceptions and memories of him are also viewed through my own flawed window.

It is interesting to look back now at my childhood with 57-year-old adult eyes. Goodness—the vast majority of my childhood memories and impressions were formed when he was much younger than I am now. By the time Dad was 57, I was a 30+-year-old mother with three kids. I look now at pictures from 40 or 50 years ago and realize how young that Dad really was! Was he as unsure of himself at 35 as I was? By the time he was 35, he was responsible for feeding seven hungry little mouths and keeping shoes on 14 growing feet! Where did the impetus come from that prompted the many chapters of his pilgrimage?

How did a farm boy from Kansas find the courage to uproot from Kansas 1500 miles to the Yakima Valley? What drove him to travel with his pregnant wife to Canada? To then move with three little ones from a comfortable little house built with his own hands and a secure job to Idaho? To pursue a totally different life path? To uproot his growing family and then move to Iowa? I could go on and on—so many moves, so many decisions.

I guess I had always flippantly chalked much of these moves and decisions up to wanderlust, restlessness, or an adventurous spirit. Recently, though, my reflections have led me to a much different conclusion. The common thread, I believe, in these paths was faith. Faith? In this flawed, contradictory, complicated, contrary man? Yes, faith.

By faith… By faith, Dean Grammon made all these difficult life decisions and changes because he was thoroughly convinced each time that it was what God was calling him to do. Did he hear God correctly? Was his understanding of God accurate? Was he even consistent in following his own perceptions of what his God required of him? No—none of us are. It is a good thing that perfect obedience isn’t the measurement standard that God uses! By faith—Noah (getting drunk, maybe overwhelmed by responsibility??) Abraham (lying, coward) Jacob (conniving scoundrel) Moses (murderer) Samson (hot-headed womanizer) David (adulterer). All were flawed human beings, all in need of God’s grace, all capable of amazing steps faith and also of disastrous decisions. Disappointingly human.

Did these “hall of fame” heroes of faith even fully understand the God they followed? Did they obey even what they did understand? No—but in the core of their being they all had one thing in common—Faith—“the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”. “Without faith it is impossible to please Him”—God held them up as examples because of their faith. God has always honored faith over perfect performance. Genesis 15:6 And Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD counted him as righteous because of his faith. NLT Romans 4:1-3 Abraham was, humanly speaking, the founder of our Jewish nation. What did he discover about being made right with God? If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have had something to boast about.

But that was not God's way. For the Scriptures tell us, "Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith. " NLT Galatians 3:6-7 In the same way, "Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith." The real children of Abraham, then, are those who put their faith in God. NLT

This is what I recognize in my Dad—a flawed human being, like we all are, who loved God and who desperately wanted to follow Him wherever He led him. Hebrews 11:13-16 All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth. Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own. If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back. But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. NLT

Mar. 4, 2008
Deanna Holsinger