Thanksgiving on Thursday...

Recently, I was privileged

to drive to a 

neighboring state 

with one of 

'my girls'

whom

 I was taking to 

Bible School.

What a trip that was!

It seemed the whole

trip was filled

with incredible

moments of Light

from heaven,

and I came home

feeling very humbled

to have been given

SO MUCH

from God.

I took the opportunity to stop by and

visit with my paternal grandmother,

who lives very close to the friends'

house where I was staying.

Let  me just say, 

IT WAS AN INCREDIBLE VISIT!

This Grandma loves the Lord.

I have always known it,

never doubted it.

Even though she is part of a traditional

Anabaptist-descended church group that

is shy about speaking for the Lord,

I am blessed by the godly selflessness 

of  my Grandma.

When I am privileged to go to

her house, I always look with reverence

and an encouraged heart at the little table

by the window in her family room

that holds an open Bible and devotionals.

When I stepped in there last week, I 

told Grandma that this always blesses me,

and she said that she NEEDS to read them.

This Grandma has served countless meals

to my brothers and sisters and parents,

uncles, aunts and cousins over the years.

And she always had a smile on her face

for all of us, and delighted in all of us,

even for all my siblings and I who were

adopted and some of us of varying colors

even though adoption was a fairly new thing

in our  generation among 'our people',

and many 'myths' surrounded us as 

were growing up.

.

This Grandma has known sorrow in her life.

She loved her husband deeply and served him

faithfully in his home and as his secretary for

the feed mill that has been in our family

since 1894, even helping in the business

for over 30 years after her husband died.

She loved her husband thru a sudden and short

bout with cancer and is now a widow

longer than she was married.

And now this Grandma of mine has to watch

her son suffer with that same, awful disease her

husband died from

 over 30 years ago.

When I visited her last week, she spoke

of her husband and her son with tears

and pain in her eyes. It was a blessing to

visit with her,

 and even though it is

not common for 'her people' to 

pray aloud together, I felt the Lord

prompting me to pray with her.

So I asked her if I could pray.

She grasped my hand in hers and said with

feeling, "I wish you would!"

We sat on the old wooden rockers 

in her family room, 

and she took my two young hands in

her wrinkled, well-used and worn hands,

and held them firmly all the while

I took the opportunity to thank God

from the bottom of my heart for this

godly Grandma, for specific ways she

blessed my life through the years.

It was a great pleasure to ask His blessing

and favor upon this godly woman,

and to pray for her to have courage and

peace as she watches her son die.

When I was finished, she squeezed my hands

and kept exclaiming how wonderful it was

to pray together and share our hearts.

And then it was time for me to leave.

As I turned to her to say goodbye,

she firmly placed her hands on

my shoulders, and I was stunned 

and blessed beyond words

to receive a generational blessing

from this woman who chose to

be my Grandma, even though

we have no biological blood

between us!

As I drove down the road, my heart

welled in deep thankfulness for

this unexpected and 

much-appreciated

blessing!

I am so incredibly amazed

at how that blessing has boosted

my courage and my desire

to live my life wholly for Jesus Christ.

I don't think Grandma even knows

what a huge impact she has had in my life,

nor what a tremendous thing she did

by blessing me that night.

I come from a home of broken relationships.

It has caused deep, deep sorrow in my life

all these years, and although I have 

learned to let Jesus be my All in all,

there is something missing when parental

and grandparental blessing is absent.

I understand why it is missing in my life,

and I have learned to live wholly 

without it 

only in JESUS, 

but it still leaves me aching in my heart

for what is missing, that God

has designed for us to have.

My thanks today is rather lengthy...

and I hope that you are ok with that.

I am blessed beyond words

for a godly Grandma...

and for parents who adopted me

so that I could even know 

this privilege.

My encouragement is

that if you at all possibly can,

BLESS your children,

and BLESS your parents...

and grandparents.

It is a great encouragement.

This world is not a friend to grace.

Many are struggling and losing their way.

Let's lift up the hands that hang down,

and let's recognize and acknowledge

Jesus in each others lives.

Go bless someone today.