A Life After Death

My original Blog- formerly titled "Granny Panties: a tale of a Granddaughter and her Grandmother" (Jan. 2008- January 2016)

In high school, if you told me God was going to call me to stay home and spend my days watching my 81 year old grandmother with dementia and taking care of a house, I would have had a mental breakdown and ran to my pastor's office to cry my life away. My greatest fear was to be a "stay at home mom" and be called to live a "normal life." I would have a jumped on a plane to Africa in a heartbeat, but stay in Pennsylvania...and not even work a real job? God would never call me to that.

Fast forward to my first semester of Bible College in York, England where I spent my carefree days drinking tea and traipsing through the city. And having my heart transformed by a Great, merciful, loving God who had bigger things for me than I could ever have chosen for myself. There He planted in my heart His love for my family, for my grandparents, who had always lived with my family but were now dying in the hospital while my family's life spun into a choatic mess of heart attacks, ventilator hospital visits, midnight phone calls for the relatives of the crazy old German woman with the low sodium condition, and constant pain as my mom watched her father (physically) and her mother (mentally) dying before her eyes.  And I knew when I came home that December that God had called me to serve at home...and He not only called me to serve, but He gave me the desire to serve them.

And so after my grandpop passed away (and through the incredible mercy of God- into eternal glory by the blood of the Son) in March 2008, my grandmother, with a mind plagued by dementia, became my responsibility.

It hasn't been perfect. My grandmom now is bedridden because of a displaced hip and stroke. She drinks thickened liquids and pureed foods. Her mind is gone. She wears depends. And I love her.


 We've had incredible highs and incredible lows. But in all of it, God had been faithful, and my ever present help. His yoke is easy, and His burden light...and I know Him so much more because of my grandmom. I would never give up the last four years for anything in the world.