Grandmother Embraced Life!

Usually, I had to share her with my eight siblings but for one glorious year I had her almost all to myself. Grandmother opened up worlds for me. In her backyard she had a wildflower garden, she would show me the different flowers as if they were her friends. Outside the breakfast room window she had a bird feeder. She knew the birds not only by name but by their songs. One time there was a comet passing in the heavens and Grandmother bundled up several of her grandchildren and took us to a bluff where we would be able to see it best. Grandmother embraced life!

With the same passion Grandmother embraced life she embraced God. I would tiptoe into her room in the morning hungry for breakfast and there she was on her knees talking to God. Often she would be praying out loud and I would kneel beside her and join in. Grandmother prayed fervently for all her grandchildren.  My Aunt Sally was a missionary in Brazil and Grandmother prayed about every one Aunt Sally mentioned in her letters.

While I was with Grandmother that year she was preparing her home for when Aunt Sally and her family would be coming home on furlough. Grandmother was so excited because at last she was going to get to meet her grandchildren from Brazil for the first time. I was so jealous! Because talking to God at Grandmother's house was such a natural thing to do I began to talk to Him about my jealousy. My prayer became a request that God would take away my jealousy and replace it with love. I asked God to give me a special love for my cousins.

God did for me exactly what He promised He would do. "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know he hears us -- whatever we ask -- we know we have what we asked of him." (1 John 5:14-15) Grandmother died about five years later but the special love God gave me for my cousins has continued and now has been extended to their children as well.

Father, thank You for giving a grandmother who taught me to embrace life. Thank You for teaching me through her that I could embrace You and be embraced by you. Thank You for enriching my world by the people You have given me to love. And, oh yes, thank You for teaching me the cure for jealousy.