Granny Erma

(Granny meeting Gage)

 

I never did blog about losing my Granny.
Maybe someday I can.

I think I am still in denial that it really happened. It was something I had dreaded my whole life. I remember worrying about it when I was little and thinking there was no way that I could handle it.

But somehow the Lord gets you through it. Even though the pain of it can be unbearable at times.

 (Here she is after dumping some of the scraps after a Sunday dinner. Every Sundy of her life she cooked dinner for her whole family & we would all cram into her little cozy house to eat and visit all afternoon. You could feel the love as soon as you stepped foot in the door. It's still my favorite place in the world.)

 

Granny was a servant. I could write for HOURS and fill PAGES with the wonderful woman she was.

 

But to sum it up, she was the rock of our family. The center of all of lives, really.

She was precious. And rare. A true lily among thorns.

 

Maybe one day I can blog about all the ways she has impacted me, but tonight I will share how her life of loving the Lord impacted my own walk just today.

 

 

In her last few years, Granny battled Alzheimers. She got confused easily.

I wasn't at church that day, but Mom told me the story when it happened. At the time it just made me sad, but today it resonated something deeper in my heart.

 

They were taking the Lord's supper at church one Sunday in the old country church that they attend; the one Granny had attended most of her life. One at a time, they would walk up and get their piece of bread and juice. Then they would go back to their seat and all take it together after they prayed.

 

Mom told me that when Granny went up to get her juice she stood up there for a moment and drank it. And then she just cried.

 

Mom had said that it was the sweetest thing to watch and it had blessed the hearts of all the people in the church.

 

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On this Good Friday, we took Communion at our home church. It was a very serious service- we came in without talking to prepare our hearts for what was taking place. My mind went back to the story Mom had told me... My sweet Granny, not knowing she was supposed to go back to her seat to drink it, standing before the church and crying as she drank what symbolized the blood of her Savior.

 

 

My sweet sweet Granny knew the magnitude of that blood that was shed for her.

She understood it. She knew the agony that her Savior went through all for her sake.

And it broke her heart.

 

Tonight, as I sat there with the cup in my hand, I pictured what Jesus did for me, for you, for my Granny. And I prayed that I would take it as seriously and understand in such a way as my Granny did. That it would break my heart, bring me to tears, and transform my life the way it did hers.

 

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That is just one tiny way she touched my life, even after she was gone.

I am so thankful for the example she set while she was here and the influence she had and will continue to have on me for the rest of my life.

(the best place on Earth= Sunday at Granny's)