Nanny

There is one remaining family member on my Dad's side of the family-my Grandmother. She has outlived her husband and both of her sons and though she has been in and out of the hospital in many situations where the doctors were saying, "Call in the family," she has always come out on the other side. On Monday morning I was getting ready for work and I had these thoughts about Nanny, our name for her, out of nowhere. I often think about her, but not like this. I thought....any day my Mom could call me and tell me Nanny has passed. It could be one day it could be 5 years or even 10 years. She is old, alone in a nursing home with very little quality of life-her time could come any day and what would I do? I would have to fly home, find a last minute plane ticket and fly back to my hometown to be there for the funeral of this last powerful link to my Dad's life. Though so many things remind me of him, she is a strong reminder of him, particularily his death. It is hard, if not nearly impossible, to think of her and not think of his passing. So, I am thinking this that morning and then I call my mom after work that night and she tells me that Nanny has had a stroke. She is alive, but immobile on her left side. She can't talk, she can't swallow and her gaze is fixed into the distance. At this point, nobody knows what will happen-will she get better, will she get worse, will she live on like this for another 10 years? I was never very close to this grandmother, eventhough she lived in my hometown, she never really took an interest in getting to know, or pouring into the lives of her grandchildren. I really struggled, especially in my teen and college years, making the effort to be a good granddaughter, and I carry my own shame around for that. But the death of my Dad did something in me towards her. My heart began to ache for this woman for many different reasons. For one, I cannot imagine what it must be like to live like she lives, having lost everyone she cares about, yet living on with so little quality of life. If that were me would I be able to begin the day by claiming, "This is the day the Lord has made!" Would I be able to speak through a voice of peace, "God and all his deeds are good."

So many times I wonder what God is up to. We want to believe that there is an order to things, or at least one that makes sense in our minds. We feel better thinking that all things are black and white, that everything has a formula and that if we can just figure it out and follow it then everything will go well for us. The problem with that is the Bible. We have very few promises in this life about how things will go, in fact, the Bible promises us that if we follow Jesus things will be difficult for us. The one promise we do have, a promise in which there is no gray area, is that the Lord will never leave you or forsake you. His plans do have an order, but not an order as we would understand it. What he asks of us is faith-faith that says, "Thy will be done. Thy Kingdom come."