I am friends with a family that I’ve gone to church with, been around, worked with and known for over 20 years. I’ve known three generations of the family and spent most of the time with the second generation who are somewhere close to my age but younger. The third generation are much younger of course, but I’ve known and been around them at times too. This is a family of educators…the patriarch was involved with a local college for years, his wife a teacher at a community college. One of the sons is a junior high teacher and his son, of the third generation is a teacher at the same middle school. The other second generation son was a missionary on a Native American reservation and a pastor. We’ve had a common interest in cross cultural travel and ministry and I guess that is how I mostly came to know this family.
The patriarch had kept a blog for the past few months since he was diagnosed with cancer. He was a world war II vet and just about every picture in the recent past he proudly wore his Navy baseball cap. His blogs focused on his treatment and how he felt physically but it really focused on his relationship with God and his saviour, Jesus Christ. I appreciated all the prayers sent his way and the comments on his blog pages. He posted pictures of his lovely wife on their wedding day and then on their 62nd wedding anniversary. He posted pictures of him as a small child sitting on the hood of his parents model T Ford on their farm. He posted pictures of the scenery outside his window and of his grandchildren and other things of importance.
He never failed to acknowledge that his life was in God’s hands and that he knew he would be in heaven when the day came that he was to pass on, whether from the cancer or just plain old age.
His last blog was a video greeting from a week or so ago that his grandson made. He had just enough energy to say a few words. I read through some of his blog entries again when I heard that he had died just a few days ago. I know his family will treasure these last words of his over the months. He was an example of living by faith in God to his family and his friends. In fact, the name of his blog was “Walking along with God, my family and my friends.” and that is what he did these past few months via his blog.
If you would like to meet this man through his past few months of life as recorded on WordPress, just go to www.billshrout.com and you will understand how much his family and friends will miss him.
