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The past several weeks have been extremely draining for the Agnew household. Eight weeks ago we started a new church called Providence Baptist Fellowship. With all the excitement of starting a new church, we had to travel to Virginia to celebrate the life of a woman who has been a spiritual hero of mine since I was child...my Grandma Geneva. She passed away this past weekend at the ripe old age of 91! Though she lived a very simple life, not wanting much, her life spoke volumes to me! Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to spend as much time with her as I would have liked. As I was driving up the mountain to Floyd county, I looked across the landscape and tons of memories flooded my mind. There were the many Agnew family Christmas', hundreds of furniture hunting expeditions and the William's family reunions that the family had off the Blue Ridge Parkway. But there is one memory that I will never forget...my grandma's faith. There was no mistaking in whom she placed here trust. I remember walking into her house and displayed on walls were the many missionaries she help support over seas. She lived the Gospel as well as anyone I knew. It was one of the sweetest funerals I have every participated in.

Driving back to my mom's house after the funeral, my mind went to wondering. When did life get so complicated? When did busyness become the motto of the day? What memories will I instill in the lives my children as they grow up? Will these memories help build a Gospel saturated life style? Of course I came to the momentary conclusion that I needed to move my family back to Virginia to reclaim that sense of simplicity. Later I realized how foolish that idea was and that my children don't need my childhood to grow up in Christian maturity. They do not need to run up and down Goose Creek or go to Colonial Baptist Church to be Christ centered. They need parents who will apply the Bible to every area of life no matter how hard it is to do so.

I found myself guilty of reflecting on only part of the story. Life was just as complicated back then as it is today, but I guess I didn't realize it like my parents did. During my childhood, I witnessed divorce and moved more times before age 18 than I can count, yet some how, God in His divine providence saw fit to equip me with everything I needed for life and godliness.

Life was not so easy for Grandma Geneva either. She saw three of her five children die before they turned forty and the other two found themselves in marriages that would ultimately fail. I realize now what it was that kept her going? It was her faith...her trust in Christ and him alone that saw her through those trying times. Through all the cracks in the pavement of life, God drew me to Himself and showed me how to live.

I guess I realize now that my grandmother was not living in some fairy tale story land as I like to imagine it sometimes. No, she lived the reality of life everyday. She knew what pain, suffering, joy and peace were all about. She lived her faith within the framework of life...all of it. Her life stands in stark contradiction to many "Christian" homes where parents work feverously to build a nice Christian bubble but only find that it will burst when they send their kids off to college. Ironically, as my family and I were driving back to Tennessee, a sign on a church captured both my and Amanda's eye. It said, "Every home is a classroom...What are you teaching?"

Normally, I have a very critical disposition toward tacky church "one-liners." This time it was different. This statement had truth at its core. What am I teaching my son (and future son or daughter) about life? How do you deal with pain and suffering? How do you live with joy? What is joy anyway? How do I prepare them for life's battles?

I know one thing, I don't ever want to teach them to pretend that life is not hard. If I learned one thing from by Grandma Geneva, I want to teach my children to engage all of life, the good and the bad, with the grit of the Gospel.