Tag: grandchildren

In the Rearview Mirror

I blink! Another year passes. And another. In my seventh decade, time has shifted into warp speed. When I realized 2019 closed out a decade, I couldn’t help but reflect on the last ten years.

On January 1, 2010, I would not have known my parents would pass into eternity within the decade’s first three years. Neither would I’ve comprehended that our children would marry the loves of their lives and then grace Al and me with the most beautiful granddaughters in the universe. Too often I said they would never marry. “Al and I will never be grandparents!”

Thankfully I was wrong!

 I’m not going to make any New Year’s predictions for 2020 or for any decade to come. I truly don’t want to know the future this side of Heaven. If I’ve learned one thing in 65 years, it’s this: I don’t know what tomorrow brings so I will live in real time, praising a real Savior.

Jesus cradles my time and circumstances in his hands. How do I know that? From the past. He’s been faithful and I know He cares for me now and forever.

If you don’t have Jesus in your life, consider the fact that He died to give you eternal life. While time in this finite world matters, it’s not the end of your story. Nor is it the end of mine.

Look back but also look ahead. Your final destination is at stake.

In like a lamb, out like a lion! Even if reversed, the March weather proverb describes our year, one that began with my partial knee replacement. That transcribes as lots of rehab and taking it easy. My end goal was to hike Utah’s amazing national parks with no pain in September. That prayer came true!

But what you might not know is that I sent a book manuscript, one that had been in the works for almost a decade, to CrossLink Publishing the day before my surgery. My thought process? I figured if they rejected it, I’d still be on painkillers and wouldn’t care. Strangely enough, the same day I quit taking the meds, the publisher emailed he wanted the book.

During this time, our daughter announced she was pregnant. A few weeks later, our son and daughter-in-law shared their same surprising news. So the lion part of our year began when our second granddaughter was born September 1, the night before we hiked the Delicate Arch in Moab with only four hours sleep. Our son and his wife gave birth to our third granddaughter October 23. Fifty-three days and 1,470 miles apart, the two girls entered this world, raising our grandchild total to 3.

Three is definitely a good number! Trinity: Walk in Love, Forgiveness and Peace was locally released two weeks later, November 9. In a way, it, too, was a birth, a labor of love chronicling how God had revealed Himself to me over the past decade. Through nature, travel, deaths, weddings and births, God, in His magnificent fullness, revealed Himself by ministering to my family and me.

As another year closes, let’s take the time to reflect upon the One who loves us enough to be our Father, our Savior, and our Counselor.

Great Joy!

October 7, 2018:

As I write this, all is quiet on the home front. Our two-year-old granddaughter Elianna and her newborn sister Tirzah are both taking a nap after church. A first since the baby was born a month ago! In fact, I’m fairly certain our daughter is asleep upstairs, too.

Since Tuesday when Al and I arrived for our two-week visit, time has blurred. Thirty plus years have sped by since we had to juggle the first month of a household of two children twenty-eight months apart. Believe me, the déjà-vu fatigue is reflected in our daughter’s face while our son-in-law is trying his best to hold everything and everyone together.

Al and I remember too well that some days inevitably will be literally filled with leaking diapers, feeding, and sobbing (the last one primarily the two-year-old and the mommy). Been there, done that!

Yet this time’s it’s different! Days that seemed like an eternity in retrospect now seem to fly by. When I was a young mom alone with a baby and a toddler, it seemed like forever until Al walked through the door at 4pm. If I had time for a shower before he came home, it was a good day.

Reliving those days with my daughter and her husband, Al and I could care less when we shower (in humid Houston, it only makes sense before bedtime). Why? Because we’re eager to share “oats-honey-raisin” breakfasts and walks to the park with our gregarious and incredibly intelligent two-year-old and cuddles, coos, and silly songs with our bright-eyed, sweet grandbaby.

October 23, 2018:

Actually it was 1:45am, Wednesday, October 24, when the texting interrupted our sleep. Our daughter-in-law’s 24+ hour labor included over 3 hours of pushing. But Nysa came into this world on her terms and on Pacific Standard Time and on the exact date and day her Aunt Valerie was due 34 years ago. Calendars do repeat themselvesJ Great joy also repeats when new parents meet their first child! We have never seen Chris and Shwetha so radiant. Tired but thrilled!

We are on hold to meet Nysa and her welcoming older pet sibling LuLu as we would like her maternal grandparents to soak up the glory of their first grandchild. They’ve traveled all the way from India to enjoy her and support their only daughter and son-in-law. But we enjoyed the family text circle that kept us up until almost sunrise. Al and I felt like we were there with them. Thank God for technology because our children and theirs live so far away.

Soon we’ll all be together, and it will be a glorious celebration of three babies: Tirzah, Nysa, and Jesus, along with a two-year-old whose favorite songs are “Jesus Loves Me,” and “Who You Say I Am.” She sings the first and dances to the second.

Great JOY!

I can hardly wait until we’re all together. That is my happy place! This fall has been an explosion of baby blessings. Al and I cannot thank God enough!

 

In the Air Again

I enjoy traveling. Packing–not so much! Not that I’m complaining, because this is the only way I can see my precious kids and their families. Since Al and I retired five years ago, we have been blessed with opportunities to travel overseas to Israel, Austria, and Cyprus, with two of those three to visit our daughter and her family.

Stateside, we have put several of the 100,000+ miles on our 2008 Chevy Malibu to drive to Maryland, Florida, Texas, California, Colorado, and Michigan. Four of those destinations involved visiting family.

Today I’ve finished packing for the fourth trip this year, second one to Houston, and believe me, I’m grateful not to being going overseas to visit our daughter Valerie, her husband Charley, and our most precious granddaughter, Elianna, who will soon become a big sister to a newborn baby sister.

I love my life!

But I loved my life, too, when both in kids were in college and our big outing for the week was a Friday night trip to Chick-fil-A with coupons. Afterward, Al and I would go to Home Depot and buy a gallon of Behr’s satin finish paint, because our weekend entertainment involved painting a room in our now 32-year-old house.

Then there were the tough-but-precious-memory years when we took care of my parents who moved from their 50+ year old home in southern Indiana into the nearby Hearth at Stones Crossing. Then most of our travel involved going to Bloomfield to check on our childhood homes. During those years time trumped travel in importance.

On the horizon we have a Utah hiking trip with friends planned, another trip to Houston, and two to San Diego where we will welcome to the family our son Chris and Shwetha’s firstborn due mid-October. Weeks later we will all gather in their new home to celebrate the holidays.

I love this phase of our life and am thankful for the God-given resources to be able to visit those we love. But occasionally I wish they were just minutes away instead of hours. Our two homebound gray babies, the infamous Bevo and Bewley kitties, agree.

“But godliness with contentment is great gain.”

1 Timothy 6:6

 

Ten Things I LOVE about Our Two Year Old Granddaughter!

 

  • how she pronounces, “aaaa pull saws, pleez?” (translation: “apple sauce, please?”)
  • how she sings “Jesus Loves Me” in a whisper as I rock her.
  • how she breaks into a smile and then laughs as FaceTime begins.
  • when she studies me floating in the pool and then tries doing it, too.
  • when she lets me babysit her special doll while she “cooks.”
  • when she “shushes” and bounces her baby doll snuggled over her shoulder.
  • when we both pat our babies’ backs and shout “burp!” and then giggle uncontrollably.
  • how she entwines the blue variegated, grandma-made blankie around her tiny hand as she sucks her thumb.
  • when she tosses her purse over her shoulder like her mother and gets into her molded plastic, pink car.
  • when she grabs my hand and takes me to the playground.

Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children. Proverbs 17:6

Thank You, Jesus, for this gift of grandchildren. I had no idea what a blessing they are and how they make aging more rewarding. May they grow up loving, obeying, and serving You now and forever. May they continue the legacy of those in our family who are now in eternity with Jesus. Amen!

 

 

Fresh and Flourishing

Lately legacy has been on my mind. Literally the word’s primary definition is “a gift by will of money and property” (Merriam Webster Dictionary). But legacy’s concept reaches beyond into the intangibles taught and experienced within a family—love, loyalty, faith, pain, indecision, apathy. . . We can fill in more blanks, can’t we?

Having one adorably cute, soon-to-be two-year-old granddaughter with two other grandchildren on the way, I feel God’s incredible blessing along with the responsibility to pass on a legacy of faith and love.

But it’s difficult to do on Face Time. When I was growing up, both sets of grandparents lived within five miles of our home. We knew my mother’s parents better because Granny made herself more available and needed more of our help since our grandfather was crippled by a stroke. Dad’s parents milked cows, gathered eggs, and took care of 100 acres until they wore out. Long distance love wasn’t an issue. We often spent Sundays together and witnessed how each lived out their lives.

Both sets of grandparents modeled faith in Jesus Christ and a strong work ethic. My parents carried that onward. My prayer this morning is that my husband and I can roll that legacy forward, too.

By no accident through the Holy Spirit’s guidance, today’s devotional verse is:
“Those who are planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be fresh and flourishing, to declare that the LORD is upright.” Psalm 92:13-15

Thank you, Jesus, for your saving grace and faith legacy that we can pass on to those we love, fresh and flourishing even in our old age.

 

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