GRANDPA AND THE SLIDE (a short devotional)

BenAvraham

Active member
GRANDPA AND THE SLIDE (a short devotional)


It was probably back in the late 1950s or early 1960s I remember that me and my mom and dad were visiting our aunt and uncle in a neighborhood just outside of New York City. Grandpa Nappi was visiting too. Grandpa took me to the park that day. Just me and grandpa, just the two of us.

Grandpa took me to one the slides in the park. It was one of those totally iron slide. I was climbing up and hit my ankle against one of the iron steps leading to the top. It hurt real bad and I started to cry. Grandpa took me down and held me. I was there in his arms for a few minutes. After a few minutes, the pain subsided. He told me to try again, to go back up the slide.

I climbed to the top and sat down. The ground and grandpa looked a bit far away, but he was there at the end of the slide. He was there for me.
He told me to slide down on that worn, metal slide. Who knows how many thousands of kids had used that slide before me. I was just another kid using it.

I gave myself a push and down I went, faster, and towards the bottom, I slowed down and when I stopped, there was grandpa waiting for me. He helped me up and I went down the slide a few more times. After a while there in the park, we went home to my aunt and uncle's house. That was one day with grandpa.

We are all using the slide of life. We climb to the top when we enter this world through water. We slide on through the years and they seem to pick up speed. Pretty soon, our childhood days are gone, they are near the top of the slide. Then come the teen years, then young adult years, then the senior years are upon us, we start to slow down. As we get to the bottom, the hair is white of grey, the smooth skin has wrinkle. But there is someone waiting for us at the bottom. It isn't grandpa, it's Father himself, our Heavenly Father who has been watching and caring for us all these years. All throughout the trip down the slide of life, he has been there, to calm us when the hurts are upon us. He has his arms out to greet us, when at last, the slide has ended. We stop. We look up at our Heavenly Father and He helps us off the slide.

We only go down the slide once. We can't put our feet out and stop our momentum, we go down and nothing can stop us. We can only know that the trip ends when death closes our earthly eyes, The slide ends at the bottom. We reach bottom, our Heavenly Father greets us and brings us into our new home; the New Jerusalem.

Ben Avraham
 
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