My church started the year by having us renew the vows we’ve made—at one time or another—to the Lord our God. It was a most appropriate occasion for me, for precisely two weeks earlier I had thought through God’s love for me and concluded I was undeniably “fearfully and wonderfully” loved.

I grew up under the doting attention of a loving grandfather who afforded me an upbringing that was nothing short of privileged. We lived from hand to mouth and I went to school barefoot. But my grandfather more than compensated for our meager provisions by doling out love in such huge helpings. I can’t recall ever feeling deprived.

To alleviate the inconvenience of the twelve-kilometer walk we had to put up with to and from church every Sunday, he donated an acre of his land to the Anglican Church. He taught me to read the Bible from the age of six, helping me to wade through the old English employed in the earlier versions which was, for a rural African child, more than a mouthful at times! He died just before my eleventh birthday, having done his best to implant in me the greatest inheritance possible: a love and passion for God’s Word. Inexplicably, the most I did in the next two decades was to stay away from this most worthy legacy!

Within those twenty years, a half of my primary school classmates died—mainly from AIDS, laced illicit liquor, depression, and other largely preventable and essentially treatable diseases. I too had my moments of high anxiety but, in retrospect, it’s impossible not to distinguish the unmistakable hand of my Savior seeing me through one “valley of the shadow of death” after another.

Yes, the Lord is good! All my life, He has hedged me behind and before and laid His hand upon me (Psalm 139:5). I am 41 now and so grateful for grandpa’s mentoring (Proverbs 22:6) and my Lord’s precious thoughts to me (Psalm 139:17). In return, I can only renew my vow to vigorously walk in truth (3 John 4).  —submitted by Willie, Kenya