A Life After Death

My sister and I visited her on Christmas. We played Christmas charades and sang "O Tennanbaum."
My grandmom survived that Christmas and miraculously came home in January, and began walking, talking, singing, laughing, and was back to her old crazy self- healthy- but demented.

Since then Grandma and I have celebrated every Christmas, getting ourselves a tree, making a happy little home in our part of the house.

Last Christmas, we took my grandmom over my other grandparents on Christmas Eve. She could no longer walk because of her dislocated hip. My dad carried her into their house and sat her in the recliner. We were all together eating ham sandwiches. She wanted to go home. My grandparents shared a little wine with her. We had a lovely evening. Christmas Day she was incredible. I hadn't seen her so good in forever. She knew who she was and sort of who we were and where she was. She ate prime rib. It was a beautiful day.

This Christmas: my grandmom hasn't eaten in days. Nothing more than a little glass of orange juice and a few bites of mashed up chicken pot pie. I've thrown out  bowls and bowls  of oatmeal and yogurt and puddings that she won't eat. She just won't open her mouth.
All her little needlepoints she worked so hard on every year are on shelves and hanging on the tree- now she can't even open her hands. They're clenched up and her one fingernail is dead.
I want to sing O Tennanbaum. She doesn't speak.

I know I've said every Christmas that this would be her last. We celebrated every year like it was, trying to make it special for us and for her.
And this Christmas will be the same. We'll celebrate it like it's her last, and try to make it special for us and for her.
If you think please pray for my mom. Watching her mom not eat has been really hard for her. For some reason I feel really detached and unemotional about it- and maybe that's just the Lord's grace cause I've got to deal with it, but for my mom it's been really wearing. Please and Thanks!



christmas 09 (ignore the date on the photo...)



Christmas '10



christmas 2011



she still smiles <3

" The ears of my soul are stopped fast, Lord, until You open them. I am deaf, and cannot hear the music of the mercies which are singing around me, like sweet choristers from heaven.

'Cause me to hear.' As You opened the eyes of Elisha's servant, to see You armies of defense and protection for Your prophet, so unclose my ears that the tones of Your still small voice may penetrate to my heart, and thrill it with exceeding joy; or, if I am too deafened by the roar and rush of earth's turmoil and distress, speak more loudly to me, Lord, 'Cause me to hear', lest I should miss the unspeakable privilege of listening to You.

'Thy loving-kindness.' Lord, what unutterable depths of compassion are covered by those two words! Your 'kindness' would be an undeserved mercy; but Your 'loving-kindness' is a miracle of divine condescension and pity. You not only rescue, You embrace; You not only pardon, You espouse; and the robe of Your righteousness, which is wrapped about Your redeemed ones is lined with the soft ermine of your tender mercies. And this for me, Lord, so vile, so unworthy, so often ungrateful and forgetful! What can I say to you for this?

'in the morning'. When all around are sleeping, Lord, waken my heart with Your tender call, uplift my spirit into true fellowship with You. early hours with my God will sanctify the whole day. In my quite time with You, Feather, so fill my soul with the sweet sounds of redeeming grace and pardoning love that, through all the succeeding hours, there may be melody within, and joy too deep and real to be disturbed or broken by any of earth's jarring discords.

'For in Thee do I trust." You know this is true, Lord. My soul rests in You; it lies down on the sure promises of Your Word, and has sweet content. Yea, though this prayer, this desire of my heart to hear Your voice, be not granted today, and you should be silent toward me for a while, it will be but Your way of drawing me closer to You that, in tenderest whispers, You may tell me, 'I have loved thee with an everlasting love.'"

Susannah Spurgeon's meditations on Psalm 143:8 from her devotional Free Grace and Dying Love

John 15:9

I love my grandmom. The Lord has been so gracious to give me her in season. He knows I need visual, tangible things to learn His love. Because He formed me in my mother's womb and knows every hair on my head...He knows how to teach me.
Anyway, I was thinking about how much I love my grandmom. How I just love being with her. How, as annoying sometimes it is to wake up to a poopy diaper, how its honestly not a big deal, because I love her. And sometimes I love just laying next to her in bed, just cause she's there. And sometimes I love to curl her hair and put make up on her because I know she really loves it- even though she doesn't talk anymore. And  I feel compassion for her when she's hurting, when she has a giant infection oozing off her face. I feel compassion for her when she can't open her hands. And I would love to help her and fix her up. But I can't.
And my love for her really isn't dependent on her doing anything. Cause honestly, she just lays in bed all day. She sleeps alot. She doesn't really talk. She sometimes mumbles things. Every so often we get moments of loveliness where she says "oatmeal" or I'll be singing "you are my sunshine" and she says the word "grey" at the right part of the song. And I get so excited that I try to bring my cousin in to appreciate it...and she doesn't because this is the first time she's seen her grandmom in a year and its just not the same. Because an 81 year old woman saying "grey" isn't that exciting for most people.
But I love my grandmom.
And my love for her is really imperfect.
I'm confined to this lazy body of flesh where I oversleep and don't get to caring for her perfectly. And sometimes I'm busy running off to church and stuff so my mom has to feed her. I can't be home 24/7. I don't stay up all night for her.
And sometimes I'm moody. Sometimes I just don't feel like it. And I get annoyed. Sometimes I'm impatient and selfish.

But God loves perfectly.
He never sleeps or grows weary.
He has all power to heal, to bind up the broken, to comfort. His power is unlimited. omnipotent.
He's omnipresent.
He's omniscient- He knows the needs I don't even know I have.

His love for my grandmom is totally perfect- entirely independent of anything she does. He saved her though all she can do for Him is lay in bed all day.
My grandmom will never lead a small group.
She will never serve soup to the homeless.
She'll never go to Sunday night prayer.
She can't even read her Bible.
But God still loves her. He still saved her.
And His love for her is entirely equal to His love for me. So that means that His love for me is entirely independent of what I can do for Him.
What freedom.
And not freedom to sin.
Freedom to be loved. Completely. Entirely. Freely.
Jesus' love for me is entirely dependent on the Father's love for Him. That's how He's loved me. All I'm called to do is abide in that love. For my whole life to flow out of that. The Father loved the Son so much. They were One. For all eternity. And the Son left glory. The Son left glory...