A Life Unordinary

The problem with Grandpa Blann, according to the world, is that he wasn’t interesting enough. By this, they would mean that he didn’t generate enough headlines. There was no scandal to capture the imagination. There was no flashy lifestyle to cause awe and envy. There was not a constant stream of behaviors and actions that seemed staged just to keep him in the limelight. He was too ordinary. Too common. Too boring.

But, to those who truly knew him, Grandpa Blann was hardly common. He lived his life in a wholly uncommon way. He loved his bride as they stayed together for 66 years. He served in the most remote parts of Africa. He led a Bible college, preached at churches, and helped lay the foundations of a denomination. As the decades passed, his expertise moved from manual printing press to computers and handheld computing devices. But he was more efficient using his older techniques and makeshift tools than most people are with modern advances. If there was a field he was unfamiliar with, he tried to learn what he could about it. He never wanted to stop learning - even when he could have been justified in doing so.

He reached out to the lives of every person who crossed his path. It could be the lady running a fast food counter. It could be a nervous fiance of one of his grandchildren. Grandpa loved and ministered to everyone. It was just second nature to him. And when it was time for him to go home to be with the Savior he loved, he did it surrounded by the family he loved and served. His wife was there to kiss him goodbye. And there was not a person in the world who had anything against him. And even though we knew it was coming, the finality of it all sucked the air out of rooms across the world - as we all lost a man who changed our lives.

So that may seem boring or ordinary or common to the masses. But to those people whose lives were touched by this man, we knew he truly was extra-ordinary.