Simple mathematics tell me this will happen over and over again. These people were my parents’ contemporaries, some were a good bit older than my parents. Some have been gone for a long time. Others are still alive and well. All of us are aging at what seems to be an exponential rate. I have to face it…I’m older now than they were then. A sobering thought.

Sunday school teachers, Training Union leaders, G.A. leaders, choir directors, camp chaperones…the list seems to go on and on. Some of these fine folks taught and worked with Junior and Senior high students for years.  I’m talking year after year after year. Preparing lessons to lead every Sunday. Seldom absent. No team teaching a month on/month off so the ‘burden’ of teaching young people wasn’t too great. No burn out. No ‘I’ve done my time’. These folks were there with us week after week, month after month, year after year. We didn’t take off for the summer back then, either.

So many lessons were taught to us by these giants of the faith. Bible lessons and truths, of course. But other, subtle lessons as well. Lessons about commitment. Perserverance. Faithfulness. Caring. Giving. Life lessons taught and learned simply by observing the lives they led in that small town.  In a time and place  making it possible for me to know where each of them lived and could ride my bicycle to their house. And did. Sometimes just to stop by and say hello. I knew with all certainty these teachers cared for me…for all of us.  Because they lived out their love.

I owe such a debt of gratitude to these precious people. We all do. They gave selflessly and tirelessly of their time and energy, not thinking it was someone else’s duty to work with the youth.   I wonder if I thought to sayThank You often enough? Were they happy when I promoted to the next class? Pleased  to be rid of the sassy Preacher’s Kid?  I hope not! Tonight, I’m feeling regret over notes unwritten to tell them how much they influenced my path. How thankful I am for them.  To speak blessing into their lives the way they did into mine, pouring kindness and encouragement into my teenage years.

They were gentle giants. I spent wonderful formative years in their shadow. They helped shape my faith, refine my character and set my standards. I pray they would be proud of the woman I am becoming today.

Yes, I grew up in the shadow of some amazing gentle giants. Now I’m standing on their shoulders, looking to the future. I am eternally grateful for their faithfulness to teach us, a generation of young people who have grown up and are now grandparents, passing on the lessons they taught us to our children and grandchildren. While sipping our senior coffee from McDonalds.

~Mollianne