A Lesson in Trusting

Firstborn grandsons are probably as wonderfully important as firstborn granddaughters, but I will never know. I had a grandson first, and his name is Eliot. After the writer, T.S. Eliot I've been told, so as to spell it correctly and indicate to all who observe such things, that his parents are well read. Eliot is already well read and he is only 6.5 years old.

After Eliot's birth, a grand affair of excitement and anticipation, his life fell neatly into place behind other major crises in the family. For example, his maternal great-grandfather died suddenly on the exact day he arrived home from the hospital, and his maternal grandfather left his family on that very summer when he was experiencing the texture of grass on his belly and smelling flowers for the first time.

Then came more grandsons, one by one quickly and annually. Granddaughters followed and then, of all things, TWINS! two different times with the grand total of 6 babies from 4 daughters in the year 2006! When I speak of emotional overload, I am not exxagerating in the least!!

Back to Mr. Eliot , however, because it is of his latest experience that I want to comment on here. Sunday evening, after son Andrew's spectacular and successful 20th birthday party, my daughter,[Eliot's never- easily- ruffled mom] called to say he was on his way to the Emergency Room to check out a thump,bump on his head. He had been sledding the day before and the lump was still bothering him as was a throbbing headache. I knew he had missed morning church along with his sickly brother Simon, an unusual event in that family's life. "If you want to join me and wait, it is probably nothing," quipped my daughter.

"NOTHING??" I internally screamed, "EMERGENCY ROOM?" "FOR MY GRANDSON?" "ARE YOU JOKING?"



This could be the "big one" , the "I have waitied and dreaded moment " in every grandmother's life, the "I trust God but really this is beyond belief" time we all hold our collective breaths for. Of course I am coming to wait with you, and if a really good doctor isn't called in to examine him, I personally will make an utter fool of myself demanding the chief neurosurgeon be called from his bed,no matter the hour, to officially and thoroughly examine this thump,bump to make certain my baby is fine!

Upon arrival at this overcrowded, teeming with germs from young children, Emergency Room, we waited. And waited and waited and waited and during that long wait was when it happened. I decided God was God-again and still. HE was perfectly capable of allowing us to fear, Eliot to hurt, mommy to doubt her sanity at being there,the doctors to be overworked and under-appreciated by the exhausted parents and grandparents, the thump, bump to be -this time- just that. All of my imaginations in the world cannot change for one nano-second the outcome of a grandchild's life. I know this because God has carefully, lovingly, Sovereignly plotted my life course already with nary a bit of help from my worries and stresses. Hospitals have been visited, my baby Danny has died, my darling husband has disappeared, my daddy is with Jesus, my dreams have been rearranged and revamped, my children have produced children and now my baby boy is flying out of this tattered and falling apart nest.

God has never needed me. I, however, must exclaim, I need Him! I need Him to be in charge of my firstborn grandson, my 9 other baby grandchildren, my future grandchildren, and all of my many wonderful children and spouses and even Adam. I need Him to be loving and Sovereignly ordering the world and it's intricacies so that I can go to work and come home and pay my bills and love my babies and rest assured that all is well, with my soul and His world.

The next time I wait in the ER(and there will be a next time ,of this I am certain)I will spend less time imagining and more time trusting. I believe that is the point of it all.

All About Andrew

I wonder if this day twenty years ago was snowy or mild? Was it below zero with a scary ride to the hospital, or was it an easy and exciting trip? Today is not only blustery,cold and gray, but finally we awakened to SNOW on the ground, and schools were closed across the region because of the ice predicted to follow later today.

Did Andy's birthmom dread the 'all-too-quickly-happening' hello and good bye of her son? I wonder if she knew before the delivery day if he was a boy or did she just keep it a surprise? Who knew this baby before he became my own? Now that I am a Grammy, I even wonder if his birth Grammy knew him for a moment in time and holds that memory close to her heart? How many times have I tried to imagine their state of mind as together they made the decision to relinquish the raising of a son to another unknown family? Wow. This is a very difficult imaginary/real life scenario!

Simultaneously in another part of Cincinnati, Ohio our family was growing and loving and thriving in a new location. Dad had recently taken a new job, Mom[yes, me] was busily loving every minute of child-rearing and homemaking. We had adopted son Joshua 2 years prior who was added to our birth children to make an even half dozen kids. Since Josh was African-American, we were Hispanic, Latin American,so we decided to continue the blending a bit more and went to our local Children's Home for an interview. I will never forget that they excitedly asked us if we would MIND taking another healthy black son? We had been so blessed with healthy children thus far that we thought perhaps it wasn't fair to even ask for a baby, but rather an older son. What a surprising twist of events.

In a matter of days the magical phone call came. Some siblings were playing and some were attending school, and Dad was at the doctor with an earache, I was doing my Mom things. Two lives were about to intersect, two worlds combining for a moment, two cultures and races united for a single cause. We both desired one baby boy to reach adulthood in a loving environment with as many advantages as humanly possible stacked in his favor.This baby boy, whom we named Andrew, arrived at our home when he was exactly two months old,tiny and dear, cuddly and sweet.

Andrew is twenty years old today, not so tiny anymore, but wonderfully dear. Still cuddly and always sweet, he is by far the best of both worlds that joined forces with love and sacrifice and selflessness to grow him up. Andy is the baby in the family , trying to become the adult son, while continually struggling with sisters and brothers who insist on telling him what is best for him in order to spare him of any more pain than neccessary. He has a smile that will win over even the grumpiest person, and he genuinely loves people. People love him,too. He is a faithful friend, a fantastic son and a terrific brother. There has not been a single day that my heart has not filled with total gratitude to God for allowing me to be part of Andrew's growth plan! What a privilege and delightful way to end the active job of parenting I signed on for 35 years ago!

My hope and prayer today is for Andrew's birthmom to be at peace with her loving decision made those twenty years ago. I hope she will someday know this man child of ours, and understand that in both of our lives there was One who guided the choices to produce the outcome that He alone intended to happen. I, for one, am glad He did, because my life is much richer as a result of loving and knowing Andrew.

Happy Birthday son.I love you.
Mom

Do not become SLUGGISH!

I woke up this morning realizing that I could not attend church once again, because of a scheduling conflict. I had promised to babysit grandson Ethan, and his drop-off time changed from before church to mid-church. It occurred to me that the best way to spend the waiting time was reading God's Word, hopefully gaining wisdom and perhaps worshipping alone THE Awesome God. I opened to the Book of Hebrews. I know, rather random isn't it? Just open a book of the Bible and read until you become wise. But it wasn't as random as neccessary because for some unknown[to me] reason I had been inwardly impressed to read Hebrews! Another interesting part of Mid-life that is rarely talked about, is that when you are impressed about something, years of experience tells you to Just DO IT.

In the meantime, I have been thinking alot about grace and church attendance and spirituality and holiness and life and weariness and on and on , as we mid-lifers tend to do. As an aside, I had to stop getting the newspaper because I got tired of being sad for people who had someone die during the week. Obituaries were read as if they were Breaking News reports!

Generally speaking I am an avid church attender, participator, member, lover, one of those die-hard types in Christendom.[I bet that word means Christ's Kingdom!] "Oh, you don't know my church experience" , you might be thinking. OH, but I do! and perhaps my own experiences can match yours, ugly story for ugly story. But since I am a follower of Jesus Christ and since He loves His church , His Bride, He calls her, then who am I to argue?

Back to Hebrews and the reading, finding wisdom and Truth part. I was utterly distracted and finding the text to be quite simply 'not applicable' to me. I had already decided that since by grace I am saved through faith , and since it is a gift of God , not of works, I would claim this church attendance category as a work,so I KNEW where I stood . Thank you very much.

Then as boldly and clearly as the political ad campaigns are on the TV during PrimeTime,especially LOST, I saw it. DO NOT BECOME SLUGGISH, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Oh my, I am guilty, again and still. I was becoming sluggish. I think that is the coolest word to describe my internal antics of semantics. I cannot begin to write here what that feels like to know exactly what God is telling YOU directly, clearly and specifically, as if you are the only one He is talking to.

Sluggish is exactly what I was about to become, ignoring the years of utter delight in the church, ignoring the warnings and exhortations and examples of older friends, ignoring what I know to be the reasons to keep going to church!! SLUGGISHNESS. A SLUG.

Inheriting the Promises is conditional on my being NOT sluggish? Good grief!is there even a word for that in Roget's Thesaurus?(or on line as the case may be?)I am only thinking out loud here, but perhaps that word is CHURCH?

Ethan arrived, an hour after my tearful repentance before my Father in Heaven Who always forgives me and my dull heart.Turns out I could have gone to church! I could have heard the sermon, sang the songs, seen my friends whom I love dearly, worshipping the Lord God together with them.

I think, however, that the plan for me today was exactly as it needed to be, and the sermon I heard from God Himself was heard much more clearly than it would have been otherwise. I really do not want to be found to be Sluggish when I die and go to eternity. Too chubby? Perhaps. Too gray? Maybe. A Little Boring? Obviously. But NOT SLUGGISH. I want those Promises!

Valentine's Day is for the Birds?

Love is in the Air

Yesterday we had a mini-ice storm and everyone had their dose of reality that winter does indeed contain cold and miserable weather from time to time. Our little state of Delaware has had an unusually pathetic winter thus far, especially since the MidWest has been clobbered! It was fun sliding home in the slow crawling traffic, sipping tea while the ice hit my windows and playing "do you want to go outside or stay in?" with the cat. You remember Apryl, of course, and her tendancy to drive me nuts.

As I sat and thought of the upcoming Spring weather, I wondered if we would see any Snowdrops?!If you don't have snow , you may not have Snowdrops peeking out of the piles of snow, reminding you Spring is on the way. Then I thought, well if we don't have winter any worse than this, will we even appreciate Spring? From there my mind went totally crazy and I realized there are alot of things that appear to be dark negatives when in acuality they are not at all as they appear....thus began my list:

*Without the nasty rainstorms I have never seen a rainbow..

*Just as snowdrops are an indicator of Spring, what about those vividly colored Fall leaves harboring a potentially frigid winter? and has any botanist correlated the intensity of vivid colors in the Autumn with the lack of harsh weather in the Winter?? Am I the only one who thinks of these things? Is this a sign of the level of excitement my life contains?

*How does the sea spit out beautiful seashells on the shore? Well, after a storm has roughed up the waves is when we beachcombers discover them!

*The cocoon certainly is ugly and dry looking and not something we would analyze on a walk through the woods, unless we knew , of course, that inside contained a beautiful butterfly ready to emerge and fly away to freedom soon.

*Those sharp,nasty thorns on a bush in my garden are sure signs that in the near months I will experience lovely pink roses, bright and plentiful as promised on the tag that accompanied my bush when I planted it.

* I tried to decide if in my list of metaphors with ugly/beautiful I could fit a bandaid and a cut, but somehow it just wasn't working...unless I think that without the ugly cut I can't use that new fancy bandaid I bought for when the grandkids come and get hurt while visiting...they are such cute animals.

My mind is particularly active as Valentine's Day approaches, I admit. What does my list, starting with Snowdrops and ending with bandaids, have to do with the Day of Love as hailed by Valentine's Day in America?

I had an ugly nasty thing happen in my world approximately 7 years ago. It was unexpected and unwanted and I fought it tooth and nail.(now where does that saying come from, for crying out loud?) Some might think that people who have such events occur in their lives would hate Valentine's Day! People can be wrong. I LOVE VALENTINE'S DAY!! I love that mere man does not define LOVE, I love that God defines love. I love showing people I love them, remembering that my world is full of myriads of differing friends and family members who are individually and corporately the reason I love life!

The other day I arrived home to discover a package on my doorstep. It was from a beautiful, young friend who lives across the country. She sent me not only a card for this silly, delightful holiday of American tradition, but she sent me a single plate and bowl all decorated with the words sweetie pie on it! How cool is that? I immediately wanted to shout to the world- "I am loved , just me, all alone, by a friend far away!" Furthermore, she sent me ONE plate and bowl and that was so perfect.To me it indicated that there was a person who was celebrating me, alone and single, total acceptance.

Well, my box is ready and waiting. What box? Oh, my Valentine's Box. It sits by my door just in case someone sends me a Valentine and I put it in the box to open Valentine's Day. I used to help the children make Valentine boxes every single year, we never opened the cards till the day,and we ate red-colored foods and gave sweet little love presents.

There was something ugly in my life, but the beautiful is emerging,God makes sure of that.
I think I will go make red jello and decorate cupcakes. I might see some of my 10 grandchildren tomorrow, and I certainly need to be ready if they pop over!

I LOVE Valentine's Day!!

Tuesday, together with twins

Her eyes darted quickly from the light on the end table to the lights on the ceiling and back. She grinned ever so slightly and then as quickly averted her eyes from mine. At first I thought I must be mistaken. Surely this elf creature, so sweet and small, innocent and gentle in all ways, could not possibly be undermining her twin brother's level of understanding and acknowledging her own superiority!! at this young age of 15 months? MONTHS, I am saying, not years!

I had just arrived for an overnight mini-holiday for me, to enjoy not only the company of daughter Becca and her dear young babies, but also to help her take them on Wednesday to the doctor's for a check up and shots. Not her favorite thing to do, especially with daddy Steve out of town on business, and her own personally painful memory of daily injections from mommy as a child. Ironically, this week is the 30th year anniversary of those growth hormone shots beginning, back in the day when they were experimental and used only for neccessity rather than bolstering muscles and causing scandals by misuse.

So not having seen these baby grandchildren in well over a week, I needed to access and evaluate all of the new happenings in their young lives, as any loving Grammy is wont to do. My innocent question to Aidan, firstborn twin and a bit bigger,[ by nearly 2 pounds as we discovered the following day] was " Aidan do you know what a light is?". He looked a little hesitant and began walking away from the couch where we were seated,trying to SHOW me where the lamp was on the table.He was a bit sluggish, as he has just begun walking upright rather than his months of knee-walking movement.

Evie, to be sure, has been walking like a pro for some time. A split second more quickly however than he could walk, Miss "I will show you I am smarter and faster " Evelyn glanced around the room hitting every single light in the area with her darting eye movements- and her father put in recessed lighting so we are talking LOTS of Lights here! Thankfully, Aidan was oblivious of her subtleties and ambled calmly toward the end table, proudly pointing out for his Grammy the light there, all the while smiling sweetly, unaware of his sister's previous discoveries. But SHE knew, and she knew I knew, that his discovery was second to hers, the knowledge a bit more slowly acquired, and the sharing behind by just a wee bit. But a sister knows and a sister needs to know, a wee bit behind is after all, a wee bit-behind.

The scene that followed was a staged photo shoot by mommy and grammy of the Christmas outfits made lovingly by Nan[the other grandmother]. One must have photos of every occasion and every cute outfit on every occasion for one's Baby Books. I had eight children and there are to this day eight Baby Books, fully recorded and memorialized, so I did my part! We dressed them both quickly and placed them in the white rocking chair with the matching white background and the plan to "hug each other" as they were properly taught by Mother.

First, Aidan looked at the wall, then we turned him around and Evie tried to jump into our arms, then Evie faced the wall, sitting while we tried to get them to stand, then Aidan refused shoes, while Evie wanted to sit, and did not care for hugging Aidan, but Aidan decided he'd had enough of the entire procedure and began stripping off articles of clothing, while Evie decided she was going to prove that she did learn HOW to HUG her Brother, so she began hugging while he began leaving...get the picture?

We put them to bed. We went to bed.

The next time Terrific Tuesday comes along, I am going to vote, stay at work, and leave the mini vacation to the younger generation. They can handle the likes of Miss Evelyn and Mr Aidan, ready and willing to awaken the next day, and the next, and however many next days there are ordained by God and love these babies as the true and wonderful gifts they are.

Amen and amen .
I am going to bed,because this Grammy got tired writing about it.And I didn't even tell you about the doctor's visit!

Psalm 116

I love the Lord, because He has heard
my voice and my supplications,
Because He has inclined His ear to me,
Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.

The pains of death surrounded me,
and the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me;
I found trouble and sorrow.
Then I called upon the name of the Lord;
"o Lord I implore you, deliver my soul!"

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
Yes, our Lord is merciful.
The Lord preserves the simple;
I was brought low and He saved me.
Return to your rest, oh my soul,
For the Lord has dealth bountifully with you.

For you have delivered my soul from death,
My eyes from tears,
and my feet from falling.
I will walk before the Lord
In the land of the living.

I believed, therefore I spoke,
"I am greatly afflicted"
I said in my haste
"all men are liars"

What shall I render the Lord,
for all His benefits toward me?
I will take up the cup of salvation,
and call upon the name of the Lord.
I will pay my vows to the Lord
Now in the presence of His people.

Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of His saints.

O Lord truly I am your servant;
I am your servant, the daughter of your maidservant;
You have loosed my bonds.
I will offer to you the sacrifice of Thanksgiving,
and will call upon the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows to the Lord
Now in the presence of all His people,
In the courts of the Lord's house,
In the midst of you, O Jerusalem.

Praise the LORD!


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