Growing up in church most of my life I heard people always share their testimonies and these stories of what God brought them through. These amazing stories of God's redemption in their lives. For the longest time I didn't think that my story mattered or that it was at all worth repeating.

It took me a long time and spiritual growth to understand just exactly all the God had saved me from and protected me from. I came from a divorced family. My father abandoned me and my sister for much of our lives. When he was, he was in and out of our lives more than I want to remember.

Statistically speaking there's a lot of ways this story could have gone. There's a lot of bad choices I could have made and blamed them on the issues of my past.

Even in all of that here's where God's story of redemption and love lies. God gave me a loving mother. He placed male figures in my life that were such great examples to me in my life.

All my life I've had the best relationships with my Grandparents. I spent so much time with them when I was little. On vacations, trips in their motor home, playing in their backyard and countless of hours of time with them. It was on trips with them to the beach that I first fell in love with the ocean and the beach, or the "lotion" as I'm told I liked to call it when I was little.

All my life I've considered myself so lucky to have the relationship that I do with them. The closeness we have and honored that they've always been so involved in my life. A couple of years ago they moved right across the street from my little family and I. God answered my small prayer of living near family again.

For the last two years I've loved living so close to them. Walking over for dinners, having them into my home. Catching each other at the mailbox, having my Grandfather sing to my kids and them both playing with them has been such a joy.

My Grandfather passed away a month ago today. I spent his last everything with him in 2015. My Grandfather was strong and stern when he needed to be. He had the best sense of humor and the quickest whit of anyone I've known. He was smart, driven and a hard worker.

He loved me so well my entire life. I never knew emotionally that I was fatherless because he loved me so well. He made such a priority and commitment to me my entire life to give and show love to me. I can remember countless moments in my life where he made sure I knew I was loved by him and by God.

His last few years he was in such pain and confusion in his mind with dementia. He's made whole now in Jesus name. I have so much peace because I know that my Grandfather loved Jesus and served him with his entire life.

I was thinking the other day about the legacy that my Grandfather left behind. The greatest thing that he taught me is this; that we should love people so well they see the love of Christ.

Because that's what he did for me, my Grandfather loved me so well he pointed me towards Jesus. He allowed me to see that I was never lacking or without because Jesus loved me. Only Jesus can offer what this world can not.

This is my testimony.

Thank you Gramps for loving me and pointing me towards Jesus.

love, andrea.

Andrea Worley