I AM A GRANDMA....

I AM A GRANDMA… Turning 70 jolted me! I mean, how did that happen? One day you’re a young woman having babies of your own and the next your grandchildren are nearly old enough to have babies! Heaven forbid that should be right now, but yes, that is a reality! I was married and pregnant at age 18 and in retrospect cannot fathom how we navigated those years without complete failure. Naïve, or should I just say, ignorant, regarding the nature of being a wife and mother, yet stubborn and willful enough to act as if I was in complete control, I fooled everyone…even myself! My unmarried sister used to give me her outdated magazines and from them I would feverishly glean information from their pages when there were articles regarding marriage and child rearing! Can you imagine? There must have been some good stuff in them because I raised three beautiful, well rounded successful children and managed to stay married for 47 years before he died! I must give some credit to my own mother, as many times I would remember how she handled raising 5 kids of her own on little or nothing, and try to emulate those things. Reaching back into memory, I would think of my own grandmothers insistence upon good manners, respect and a woman’s ‘duty’ to keep a clean house and a decent appearance. These were things she taught my mom and then she passed to me. I often wonder if my children remembered my actions and then in turn put them into practice. My son once said, ‘I want to raise my kids just like you and dad did’ so perhaps we did something right! As a grandparent now, I look at my grands with pride and deep joy! I worry, I celebrate, I enjoy, I participate, I pray. Life is different for them, even from when their parents were growing up and definitely from the ’olden days’ when I was growing up. Sometimes I feel so insignificant when it comes to sharing their lives but the Lord frequently reminds me that my most important role as a grandmother, is to actively pray for them. My ‘words of wisdom’ as my grand Hannah calls them, are important too, whether taken to heart or just packed away to be unfolded later, but to pray is my most powerful weapon against all the odds presented to them in this age of peculiar happenings. Yes, 70 did jolt me, but by the same token it gave me time to reflect on the importance of having the privilege to be called ‘grandma.’ I may not get enough time with them nor be as important as I’d like to be in their lives, but being on the sidelines cheering them on, smiling with pride and praying daily for them gives me the most important job on earth. Thank you Lord for that privilege! “Grandchildren are the crown of the aged.” Proverbs 17:6 “They (me) shall still bring forth fruit in old age!: Psalms 92:14