by Rob Pue, All News Pipeline:
– A life is a terrible thing to waste, but how much more awful the wasting of a precious soul?
This message is going to be a bit more personal than usual. You see, as I am about to turn fifty-three years old in a few weeks, I confess, I am starting to feel my age and doing a bit more reflection lately. Emotionally and spiritually, I don’t really “feel” fifty-three. In fact, it seems like only yesterday that I was a teenager or a young adult, vibrant and strong and full of ambition. I’m still full of ambition and I will probably always be what people call a “driven” person… but the reflection in the mirror is not what it used to be.
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It’s probably around this time that a lot of people begin to think about their legacy…their accomplishments, and wonder if they have made any sort of positive difference in the world. Is the world better off for us having been here? Or has our existence been completely in vain? Have we touched any lives? Has our life had any meaning, or if we had never been born, would anyone have noticed? I don’t mean to get off on any narcissistic tangent here, but I hope you’ll indulge a few personal thoughts.
One of my hobbies is studying our family history. I find it fascinating to learn about my ancestors, where they came from, what they did, what sort of legacy they left after they were gone. The Pue family comes from Northern Ireland. Our family had the first printing press, and thus the first newspaper ever published there, starting in the 1600s.
I don’t remember my grandfather; he died when I was just two years old. His parents raised eight boys and three girls in a small Irish cottage near the seacoast. My grandfather’s name was Alexander Pue, or “Alec” as he was called. He left home as a young man and traveled to Scotland, where he learned a trade as an architecht, builder and stone cutter. I believe he was about 20 years old when he left the old country for good and emigrated to Canada… he never saw his mother again. He started a business there, and in 1910, at age 28, he married my grandmother. Several of his brothers also followed him to Canada. His sister Margaret came over in April of 1912. In her memoirs, she writes about sailing in the path where the Titanic disaster occurred just a week before, and seeing all the debris still floating in the water. Her ship stopped there, and they held a Christian memorial service in honor of those who lost their lives on Titanic.
Some time later, my grandparents moved to Chicago where my grandfather continued his business. He built many of the huge, ornate buildings in that city, many of them still standing, some historic landmarks.
My Dad was born in August of 1925. He was four years old when the Great Depression hit. Though the country was in turmoil, my Grandfather, a devoted Christian, weathered the storm and kept food on the table for his family, even as a self-employed builder. I’m blessed to have as keepsakes some of the tools he used in his business. My grandparents raised two daughters as well as my Dad, and sadly, a fourth child, my Dad’s young brother, died in 1917 at just four months of age. Life must have been tough. I can’t imagine it. But they made it, as they kept God at the center of their family. My Grandfather insisted on it.
He was also an Elder at Chicago’s well known Moody Church for many years. He even preached the sermons there on occasion. My Dad attended there as a child and recalls when a young Billy Graham came to teach them as their youth pastor. Moody’s Senior Pastor at the time was Dr. Harry Ironside, one of the most prolific Christian writers of the 20th Century, having published more than 80 books, a number of which are still in print. On my office wall, I have my Dad’s Sunday School Diploma, dated 1939 and signed by Dr. H.A. Ironside.
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