"Quiet Godliness"

“Quiet Godliness”

 

I was the first grandchild in my father’s family. Not long after I was born my parents made the decision to purchase a home outside New York City. To speed this process Dad worked overtime to save up for a down payment and my grandparents helped by inviting us to live with them in their large house in Brooklyn when I was 18 months old. During the three years we stayed together I developed a special life-long relationship with Grandpa (Lamont McMillan Sr.). He’s been with the Lord since 1969 but my life was greatly enriched by the 26 years God allowed him to be part of it. My brother Dave put it well: “Few people were so blest to have had such a grandfather.”

What are my greatest memories of Grandpa? Here are a few:

 -His patience (he read to me for hours on end, taught me to tell time, and showed me how to tie my shoes—I still do it backwards as I mirrored his actions)

 -His friendliness (I never knew of anyone who didn’t like him)

 -His sense of humor (my favorite line is his giving the reason for his being bald: “Grass doesn’t grow on a busy street!”)

 -His intelligence (he was a CPA, a career path I planned to follow him into until God intervened)

 -Every summer as we were growing up Dave and I spent a week with Grandma and Grandpa seeing everything worth seeing in the City (we called it our “vacation”—for them it was likely anything but)

 -His quiet service in his church doing everything that needed doing (especially in using his accounting skills in financial areas)

 -In his later years he cared for Grandma as she struggled with the effects of dementia (he even learned to cook)

Grandpa exhibited a quiet godliness and was a great example of character and integrity which I pray others (including his great-great-grandchildren) will see in me. I have been blessed with a heritage of (to adapt the principle of 2 Timothy 1:5) “…Sincere faith, which first lived in my grandfather Lamont Sr. and in my father Lamont Jr….” (Dad is the subject of the last article in this series). I pray that this same faith will be seen in me until God takes me Home.

 

Blessings!

Jim McMillan