In this week’s Saying Grace column in Fredericksburg’s Free Lance-Star, I shared my heart in regards to the death of my great uncle, a man I was never given the chance to know because of the life choices of my grandfather, Kenneth, also a man I never knew.

You can read that column here.

My grandfather, Kenneth, was essentially absent from my father’s life by the time he met my mother and was completely gone by the time I was born. In a sense, I am glad I never knew him because he wasn’t much of a man.

But that doesn’t change the fact that I feel an incredible sense of loss when I think of what might have been. The lives of so many people would be different today if one man had chosen to follow the path of righteousness instead of the path of destruction.

I pray that this fact always serves as a reminder that we are not an island. The choices we make ripple out like waves when a pebble is dropped in the still waters of a pond for generations to come.

That is why I daily declare, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”