Journey - Tour Guides

While thinking about what to write for the Journey, I kept coming back to the word “journey” and how that aptly describes our relationship with God.

Our life on Earth is a journey to an everlasting relationship with God. But God does not let us wander, guessing which way to turn. He has provided his Son to open the path to Him, and the Bible as a road map. Plus he has given us fellow Christians to serve as our tour guides.

My paternal grandfather, Henry was one of my tour guides. I have come to realize that his guidance and influence has led me to Stephen Ministry.

For the last 12 years, I have been a Stephen Minister. Stephen Ministry is about loving others unconditionally, being willing to listen to others share their concerns, and not judging others.

As a very young child, I could not say Henry; instead, I called him Rennee (Ren-Nee). Because I was his first and only grandchild, for the remainder of his life Henry’s name was unofficially changed to Rennee.

Grace and Henry Gwaltney

I was 32 when Rennee died at age 92. My memories of him are not only as a young child but as an adult. And as I grow older, I continue to look back at his life for lessons for my own. His two outstanding characteristics were his humility and unconditional love of others.

At the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus stated, “Blessed are the meek.” Rennee took that call to heart. Humility was second nature to my grandfather. His humbleness was not in his words, but his actions.

He loved serving his church, First Baptist Church in Richmond, Virginia, but he rarely did it in public ways. He ushered every Sunday, counted the Sunday School offering, worked in the mail room at the Virginia Baptist Board, opened the church on Sunday mornings, and worked every summer at the Virginia Baptist’s camp, Eagle Eyrie. All low profile, but all serving God.

Only as a Deacon for over thirty years, did he serve in a somewhat public way.

The second characteristic was his unconditional love of all people, which I now realize went hand-in-hand with his humility.

He was not one to give advice, but he always encouraged me to do two things. First, be active in my church – “The more active you are, the more you will receive.” From my personal experience at Hayes Barton, I can testify that he was right.

Secondly, one of his favorite sayings was “Make yourself known.” He did not mean to make a name for yourself, but to get to know other people. He truly believed that all people were worth knowing.

People were worth knowing because they all had good inside them. He looked for the best in everyone. I never heard him say a “disparaging word” about anyone. I think he understood that we are all God’s children and since God loves us, he should also.

When he walked into a store, all the employees from the stock boy to the manager would stop him. Not only did he know their names, but he knew about their lives – if they were married, did they have children, where they lived. He had taken the time to get to know them.

Every Sunday, he and my grandmother ate at the Virginia Diner, a restaurant in southeastern Virginia. The Virginia Diner also sold peanuts. Every week my grandfather would buy cans of fried peanuts, very good but very bad for you, and then give to the many people he knew. He did not do this to curry favor, but because he knew people enjoyed them.

While, I loved and admired him while he was alive, it was not until his death that I realized what an impact he had on others.

To a stranger, his life would have seemed unremarkable. But in addition to his obituary, the Richmond Times Dispatch ran an article concerning his life and death. It focused on his service to his church and how he was a well-known, loved member of the community.

My grandmother, another tour guide in my life, was afraid that Senior Pastor, Dr. Flamming, would not know what to say about my grandfather. Dr. Flamming just smiled and said, “Grace, I already know what I’m going to say about Henry.” In his eulogy, he used Henry’s life to show how we can all serve God.

First Baptist Church is the oldest and one of the largest churches in Richmond. For Henry’s funeral, its sanctuary was full, including the balcony. As I walked with the family out of the church, I began to cry as I realized that almost a thousand people were there mourning the loss of my grandfather. In addition to friends and family, the crowd included those store managers, stock boys, and a large number of ministers from across the Southeast.

My grandfather was a simple, humble man; that just wanted to serve God. He never did anything newsworthy or that brought him fame and riches, but his life touched hundreds, if not thousands of people. He loved people and people loved him back.

I doubt he would have ever been a Stephen Minister. He was of the era when men did not share emotions. But the two things that made him who he was, his humility and unconditional love of others, are the very things that Stephen Ministers bring to caring relationships. I think a little bit of my grandfather is living through me as I try to serve God as a Stephen Minister.

One last story about Rennee, it has been sixteen years since his death. I was recently at one of my daughter’s tennis matches and making small talk with another parent, Joel. During the conversation, I found out that Joel had grown up in Richmond and his father was a Baptist Minister who had worked at the Virginia Baptist Board. I told him my grandfather had worked part-time there for several years. Joel immediately called his father to ask if he knew Henry. His father’s response, “Of course I knew Henry Gwaltney, everyone knew and loved Henry.”

Sixteen years later and Henry’s life still touches others - What a great tour guide.