A Thousand Generations

Exodus 15:1-3

The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.  He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. Exodus 15:2

My father grew up on a farm in Iowa along with his 4 brothers and two sisters. His parents were Henry and Katherine Mulder. I know very little about his life as a child. Within the last 5 years, I came across this picture of that family. My dad is on the far right. The date on the picture would have meant that my Dad was 9 years old at the time.

By the time I was old enough to remember anything, his parents (my Grandpa and Grandma Mulder) had stopped farming and had moved into town. We never called them Grandpa or Grandma, but rather we called the them Opie (pronounced like the character played by Ron Howard on the Andy Griffith Show) and Omie. Both were some variation of the German or Dutch words for grandpa and Grandma.

You probably have seen the picture titled “Grace.”  It is a painting of an older gray haired, bearded man in a posture of prayer with a loaf of bread, pair of reading glasses, and old book sitting on the table.  My grandparents, Opie and Omie, had that picture on prominent display in their kitchen in their house in Parkersburg.  As a young child, I often wondered how someone had made a picture of Opie, my grandpa, with a beard.  The man in the picture was older and had a beard, but he sure looked like Opie to me.  It was a long time before I figured out that it was not a picture of Opie. 

I always looked up to Opie as a wise saint.  I am not exactly sure why I thought that.  It may very well have been my connection of Opie with that man in the picture.   I don’t remember Opie being an outspoken leader of the church or Sunday School teacher; I don’t remember him “preaching” to us his grandchildren.  Maybe because he was old, maybe it was he had calmness and quietness about him.  He was not flying off the handle or babbling with constant idle chatter.  But saint is the first word I think of to describe him.

I am not so naive to think that Opie was without his flaws and at times wasn’t very saintly to other people in his life.  But most of my memories are of a pretty young grandchild that include him letting us puff on his pipe or “playing piano” on our rib cage.  The only real “spiritual” thing I remember was that he wrote Psalm 119:9 in the high school graduation card he gave me.  I made a point of high lighting the verse and noting in my Bible that was Opie’s verse for me.  “How can a young man keep his way pure?  By living according to your word.” 

I now tell my children about Opie, and help them to know how to keep their way pure.  And I do so to honor Opie and my father, pass on that heritage of faith to my children, and remember that God is faithful to a thousand generations. 

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.  The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.  But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.   Deuteronomy 7 6-9