Chapter Twenty Three: Fulfillment in Simplicity

Being fruitful isn’t a matter of starting something and achieving it. Perhaps it is a matter of simply being able to respond to the people and situations around us with his love in our heart. Most of my life I have drawn a line between what I think God wants and what I must do to get it. Jesus warned us  “If you try to save your life you’ll lose it. If you try to be first you’ll end up last”.  He only asked us to love, one day at a time, whoever is before us in whatever circumstance we meet them. Everything else he wants to do will flow from that simple reality.  I found I needed to learn just to live loved by Father and find rest in the waiting on Him to fulfill my life.   If you are just starting to read this blog it helps to start with Chapter One to get the whole picture.

By the time Greg and I were married a few years I had become a Grandmother of three beautiful grandchildren I received much fulfillment in reaching out to them.  Jason and Heather both had daughters born to them on the same day, within one hour of each other.  It was phenomenal and since there are no coincidences with the Father I am sure there is a reason for that.  What are the chances of a brother and sister having babies on the same day, same time, within an hour?  So, we had the girls, Katie and Savanna, who were five years old, and Christopher who was seven years old at the time I decided God was calling me to begin weekly bible studies with them.  For the next five years I gathered them up every week and taught them interesting stories out of the bible and watched God move into my grandkids lives in a big way.  Teaching my grandchildren was so rewarding for me.  It was a true calling.  I knew that what they would learn in our times together would be a foundation that would carry them through life. 

We had so many interesting and truly funny times together that I will cherish forever. We would sit around the table and one particular day we were learning to hear God’s voice.  We prayed, and then sat in silence—a difficult thing for children of any age.  I looked at their little faces, screwed up, concentrating on listening.  Though I had explained that He speaks to us through a quiet voice deep in our spirits and we will grow to recognize it, they still weren’t getting the concept.  Finally, Katie excitedly said, “I hear Him, I hear Him.”.  I asked, “What is He saying?”  She said, “He’s whistling a happy tune to me.”  Then Christopher said, “I hear Him too.  He is singing to me that He loves me.”  Savanna started crying and said she didn’t hear anything. 

One day Savanna said,  “I can’t wait til the big sweeper comes.”  When I asked who the big sweeper was, she said, “You know, when He comes to get us and sweep us all up together and carries us to Heaven.”  To which Chris said, “No, Savanna that’s not right, it is called the rapture.”   Katie quipped in, “Yeah, Savanna, you know, when he wraps us all up and carries us to Heaven.”  Those memories are precious to me.  We prayed, and they kept prayer journals of all their prayers that were prayed.

Within two months of starting our study,  all three of them received Christ as Lord of their lives.  Three months after that Greg and I baptized them in water in a friend’s Jacuzzi in her back yard.  We sang songs of worship and their individual Dads and Papa baptized them.  It was a highlight of my life and I believe their parents lives as well. 

When they became adolescents the training took a totally different approach from weekly bible studies to just being available for them on a daily basis. I am blessed to live close to them all.

At the writing of this book I now have 2 more grandchildren to bless our lives with, Juliana and Gabriel.    God is so good to us.  He has taught me so much in the way of surrendering them all to the Lord.  Allowing Him to grow them up instead of me trying to fix everyone in their daily lives has been such a learning process.  As a parent or grandparent it is so hard to not put your two cents worth of advice in where it is not asked for.  As our kids become adults and our grandchildren become teens we all want to teach them from our own experiences so they can avoid going through what we did.  I have found that just by living my life before them the way the Lord has called us to do speaks louder than interfering in their lives with my unwarranted advice, as well meaning as it may be.  Our prayers, surrender, and living  will be followed by our families much more than us trying to fix everyone.  We are not the Holy Spirit.  He knows how to work from the heart, into the areas we can’t see.