What Is Your Life Built On?

This is from Stephanie (my daughter): 

I want to share a personal story.

A few weeks ago, my grandfather passed away. As I watching his memorial online, I was reminded of the faithfulness of God for those who have chosen to build their lives on Him. And what that meant for the generations that came after him.

Since it’s Mother’s Day, I want to honour my grandmother, Margaret Preston. I want to honor her decision to say ‘yes to Jesus’ and how that has impacted my life. I will share a little bit of her story and how her and my grandfather’s stories intertwined. I want to share how it has impacted me and impacted the generations to come.

My Grandmother was only 15 years old when she married Gordon Cole. They had four beautiful children together. My Dad is the oldest of those four. When my Dad was 12 years old and Grandma was 30 years old. He, my Dad’s father, went to work and never came home that day. He was tragically killed in an accident.

My Grandma was sharing how at the time she didn’t know that he had passed away. She was just told that ‘your husband has been in an accident, you need to go the hospital.’ Grandma drove herself to the hospital (she’s a strong independent woman). She said, ‘I didn’t want anyone else to give me a ride, I just wanted to drive myself.’

So she drove herself to the hospital thinking, ‘I’m just going the hospital to visit my husband who had been in an accident, get him better and bring him home.’ Because that is what she had been told. That was all she knew at that point.

She arrived at the hospital and asked the front desk lady for the room number so she could visit her husband. The lady answered, ‘I’m so sorry, you can’t see him, the Coroner has already taken him away.’

Grandma said her world began to crash as she recognized that he was gone. Up that point, she had no idea that he had passed. Now here she was, a young widow with four small children to raise. She had no idea how to move forward.

She drove back home all by herself. Grandma said, she wouldn’t have traded that moment in the car for anything else. As she drove to see her children, she turned on the radio. The song on the radio was an old hymn. 

Grandma said she just let the song wash over her. In that moment, the waves were crashing. The storm was so real for her. She had just lost her husband and had four young children to raise on her own. 

She said, ‘Stephanie, at that moment, I needed that time alone in the car by myself, to really establish that I really was going to choose to trust in Jesus. That I was going to make Him my everything. That I was going to continue to build my life on Him.’ She made that decision even though the circumstances around her were raging, even though the storm was raging.

‘Stephanie’, she said, ‘I needed that time to just settle in my heart, that when I walked in that door to face my children, to tell them that their father was no longer here. That I needed to know that I trusted in the Lord and I was going to choose to trust in Him. That I was going teach my children to trust in Him as well.’

Meanwhile, around the same time, there was a man named Ron Preston. He was pastoring a small church in Fort Langley with his wife and two small children.

Things began to go terribly wrong for him and his wife left him with their two small kids. She wanted nothing more to do with him or the children. Here he was, a young pastor with two small kids. His marriage had fallen apart. The storms of life were really real for him too.

He had to step away from ministry because of what his wife had chosen to do. My grandma said that at one point he held his head in his hands and said, ‘Lord, there must be more for me than this. There must be more for me than this!’

Here we have two people, who very well could have walked away. Who very well could have said, ‘This is just too hard. I can’t do this. This is more than I anticipated. This is not the life I had signed up for.’ They could have very well parted ways with God. 

But, they both made the decision in those really hard moments. ‘Jesus, I’m locking eyes with you. You are my everything. I’m fixing my eyes on you. I’m choosing to trust You. I’m choosing to build my life on You. Not only for me, but for the generations to come.’

They knew Jesus was their only lifeline in that moment.

A couple of years later, the Lord brought them together. Two hurting and broken people who really needed each other at that moment. They combined these two families into one.

Here is their wedding picture, there’s my dad there (far left), and these are the six kids. They became one family.

My grandma said that before they got married, her and Grandpa said, ‘Our number one commitment is to serve the Lord and to make sure that these six kids know Jesus and are raised in His House. That they love Him and build their lives on Him too.’ That was their commitment.

They spent 54 years together before Grandpa passed. That commitment held true through the good times and the bad. Even in their relationship together, they had some highs and lows. Still, they committed to build their lives on Him.

The next picture I want to show you is one of the times when most of us were together. This was before many of the great-grandchildren were born.

Their commitment to say ‘Yes to Jesus’, not only saved them in that moment, when they really needed it. But it also impacted generations to come. All six kids and their spouses are serving the Lord and are part of God’s House in the places God has planted them. All fourteen of us grandchildren are serving the Lord with our spouses and our part of God’s house. All eighteen great-grandchildren are in God’s house, learning about Jesus, giving their lives to Him.

All because these two people, Grandma and Grampa Preston, said yes to Jesus when the storms were raging and the wind was blowing. The waves were crashing and life was really real. They decided in that moment that their firm foundation was going to be built on Christ and Christ alone.

That’s my prayer and desire for all of us in this place today!

• This is the closing story from my daughter, Stephanie Iverson’s, Mother’s Day Message at Love City Church on May 8, 2022. The entire message is on Youtube below.