Those words from 1 Samuel 7:12 came to me as we were listening to the young people singing from the church conference. A word of explanation is needed here, the Church of God in Christ, Mennonite holds a general conference about every seven to ten years. The 2022 conference is underway now at Tupelo, Mississippi where about 10,000 members are gathered to consider and find direction to maintain our course to serve God in our present day and age.

At least a quarter, perhaps more, of those gathered are youth. This evening we listened to an audio stream from conference that began with singing by half of the youth present. The other half sang at dinner time. (I’m a Canadian, dinner is the noon meal.) So there were around 1500 young people singing out with great enthusiasm, a cappella and in four part harmony. Two of our grandchildren were among those singers.

My wife and I have been married for 52 years and members of the Church of God in Christ, Mennonite for almost 44 years. Our daughter and her husband have been married for 23 years, and we have four grandchildren who have no other idea but that they want to serve God all their life. This all began with the decisions that my wife and I made years ago, but those decisions were not due to our upbringing, our intelligence or wisdom. We didn’t know what we were doing, we made a lot of bad choices along with the good ones. But God helped us sort it all out and find our way.

I really believe, I know, that God has helped us reach this point in our lives.