Trust in the LORD always,
     for the LORD GOD is the eternal Rock.

Brown and gold leaves crunch underfoot as I walk out the sidewalk to see Grandson and Granddaughter off on their first day of school. They are taller. Another summer ended. Another year gone by.

Born in 1900, my Grandma Kate lived over one hundred years. We often talked of all the changes she had seen in her years, things like microwaves and washing machines and jet planes and televisions and telephones. How much life changed for the young mother who did laundry with a washtub and board and lived without an indoor bathroom!

And already — although I am nowhere near one hundred! — I see how much life has changed since my early years. My grandchildren know nothing about rotary dial phones, LP records, manual typewriters, life before computers. (A black and white TV screen must surely be a sign that something is not working properly.) Just as Grandma never dreamed that someday doors would “see” her coming and open magically for her, when I was twenty, I never dreamed I would be skyping, texting, and driving according to directions from a talking black box.

So I cannot imagine what life will be like for my adult grandchildren.

I do know that they will have within them that which yearns for God. Just as my grandmother did. Just as I do. Just as blue eyes and temperaments and dimpled chins and body shapes continue to appear throughout a lineage, so every generation, since the beginning of time, carries also the need of God’s love, His strength, and His protective refuge.

Even when we cannot name what we seek, we look for

          quenching water
          everlasting love
          welcoming home

My grandma was losing her sight during her last years here. But she had eyes that saw the Invisible, and I believe that eyesight grew ever sharper as the years went by. No matter what was going on in the world around her, she depended on the strength, stability, and refuge of the eternal Rock.

When cell phones are unknown to teenagers and when travel from one place to another is by means not even conjured up by today’s science fiction writers and when handwritten letters are seen only in museums — for as long as this earth stands and beyond — the eternal Rock will still be there.

In every generation, His hand of love holds those who come to Him. His love endures forever. We can trust in Him always.

Scripture: Isaiah 26:4 (NLT)