Right At Home

I was raised in a Christian household with a few key events that shaped my understanding of God’s love and unconditional Grace.

As a small child, I spent time each summer with my Grandparents at their cottage in Wiarton, Canada in Northern Ontario. The cottage was remote and rustic; built in phases as they could afford it by my grandparents who were married during the Great Depression. Our days were spent experiencing God’s amazing creation through the wildlife and peace we found in a place with no telephones, water drawn out of the bay, and millions of bright stars at night without the interruption of city lights. Through that peace, I remember a contentment settling in my soul as we walked to my Great Aunts cottage every weekend to watch church with pastor Robert Schueller on television (my grandmother never had a driver’s license to drive into town for church). As clearly as it was yesterday, I remember a stirring in my heart that led me to a desire to understand more about my faith. It was that summer that I looked to my Grandmother and asked, “Grandma, how do you really get into Heaven?”. My grandmother’s name was Fanny and she stood 4’11” tall. She was the daughter of a 5” tall baker who immigrated to America from Germany. Her faith was pure and uncomplicated, just like her life that had been devoted to serving her family in a traditional role. Understanding the importance of the moment, with a twinkle of joy in her blue eyes she looked into my 8 year old soul and said, “Krissy, it’s very simple. All you have to do is believe that Jesus is God’s son and because He loved us so much, he came to die for us”.

I have never forgotten that moment, or my grandmother’s explanation of the unconditional love that is always there for us.