Digging Deep More

This month, while thinking about the covenant life that we live in Christ and about ensuring that our children know that covenant, I received this recording from my dear friend, Berta Kennedy. She was present at a college reunion at the Jacksonville church of Christ; a sweet time when those students who had strengthened their faith, in college years, through being part of the Jacksonville Christian Student Center, came back to enjoy worship and fellowship together. 

One of the speakers at this event was Dalton Gilreath. He always does a fantastic job presenting the Word of God. I have loved him for a long time. You’ll love this if you can take time to listen. But if you only get to hear four minutes of what he had to say, listen to the recording beginning at minute 41:00. He talks there about a committed man in a time of mental and physical crisis. That man was my dad, Lee Holder. Next month, I will have been missing Dad for eight years. As the time of his death becomes more distant, the time of reunion with him and my mother draws closer; and that’s a wonderful reality. Here’s the link (minute 41): https://www.jvillecoc.com/class/09-07-2025-dalton-gilreath-keeping-the-past-present-jcsc-reunion-lesson-1/

My covenant with God (my promise) is faith and obedience as long as I live in this testing ground. His promise, if I do, is salvation and heaven.  

I hope that, if I ever lose my faculties, even temporarily, as was the case with Dad, in this instance when he was almost the age of 90, that my auto-pilot will be similar to his. I’m thankful that he lived in the covenant relationship with God and that all of his children and grandchildren are covenant-keepers.

I remember that awful night as if it was last night. I got the call that my dad had been transported to the hospital and I got in the car and rushed to that emergency room where a kind doctor told me that he very well might pass at some point in that long night. You can read about that here: https://thecolleyhouse.org/?s=right+turn

But it was another long night six happy years later before we sang “Be with Me Lord” around his bed, as he left us. All of the great  grandchildren he knew were born in those sweet six years. His oldest grandson was married during those years and he traveled to Tennessee for that wedding. So many things changed during those happy years. But some things stayed just the same. He sat right there on that same pew for about a thousand more times during those years (though I think that awful night was the only one in which he ever took his shoes off). He walked under the giant oaks that he had planted, as saplings, on that church property about a thousand more times to enter the building. He passed out Halloween candy to the church children who came trick-or-treating six more times and he gave about 200 more Christmas gifts. He played with squirrels on his patio, one of which would come and eat bread from his hand. He adopted a stray dog and he piddled in the shop. He celebrated, at a giant picnic at Germania Springs, his ninetieth birthday. And then, finally, on a snowy day in early December of 2017,  his body did lie exactly where it had lain on that awful night. But this time, he wasn’t rescued to have six more sweet years of favorite things. He was rescued to have an eternity of things so wonderful…things that are immeasurably MORE than we can ask or imagine. 

I’ve followed him to a lot of places. If I can follow him just once more, that’s all I ever want!