Happy Soul Tending Tuesday, friends.

Over and over God reminds His people to remember. Which almost seems like a word trick, remember to remember. Yet, we are prone to forget. Unlike God, who is outside of time, we are firmly planted in time and space, making it a challenge to hold the past, present, and future with equal attention. Thus the 148 uses in the King James Version of the word “remember” (121 OT, 22 NT) or the 166 times it is used in the New International Version (130 OT, 36 NT).

Part of the way we tend our souls is to create pauses in our days, weeks, and years to remember God’s faithfulness.

This Friday is one such pause.

I love All Saints Day for the way it anchors me in the past and points to the future. One of the best-known remembrances for the great cloud of witnesses that have gone before us is found in Hebrews 11 and 12.  While I know that not all reading this come from a rich faith heritage, when people start to share their story there is often at least someone in their family’s past who wasn’t a stranger to Truth.

Who are some of the saints in your family? Whose faithful shoulders are you standing on?

In my family it is my Grandma Young. Even as I type this, memories of her bubble to the front of my mind even though she has been gone from this world for over 25 years. A strong memory that captures my grandma’s two great loves—Jesus and her family—involves a weekend that our parents left my sisters and me at our grandparents.  

Grandma faithfully played the piano at her church. We were too young to sit in church alone while she played at the front of the sanctuary, so our grandpa attended with us. Grandma wore hearing aids, but on that day the three of us belted out the hymns so loudly she probably didn’t need them! Grandpa was a sport to stand towering over the three of us when he probably wanted to shrink away from the smiling stares.

I remember watching my grandma play with gusto and joy as she beamed at the three of us, joining her in singing to God. I have no doubt that I was in China as a result of her prayers and faithful life. As the generational mantle is now being passed on in our family and I see the potential in my nieces, I wonder the ways in which they will join the cloud of witnesses.

But this week, instead of looking to the future, join with the author of Hebrews and as we fix our eyes on Jesus, and be reminded of the ways he has worked in your life and family.

Who are the saints in your family?

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Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash