Friday, May 4, 2007

Dearest God,

I love the sparkle, the twinkle, the sheer delight in my granddaughter's face when she sees me. When she knows I am on my way to her house, she waits at the front door looking out the window. I honk halfway around the corner from her home. She squeals and shouts, "Grandma's here, Grandma's here!" When I pull up in the driveway, she bolts from the door and we run toward each other like those movie scenes. I used to pick her up and twirl her around. But she's seven and tall for her age, wearing a size 12. Now I pull her up close to me and I squeeze the daylights out of her.

Gabrielle tells her mother that I am her best friend, that she would pick being with me over her friends. Wow! It's sorta like being picked first on the team. Now, I know that won't last long. But for now I enjoy the notoriety.

Gabrielle and I have such fun together. But then so do Sophie and I. I just have fun with all my grandchildren (in the double digits).

I have become increasingly aware of my need and responsibility to pass along what I have learned in my lifetime. I have decided to take my seven year old and six year old to the House of Prayer. I grew up in the small town of Tipton and I want to take the girls to visit my old homes on Main Street and Green Street. I want them to walk around the old train station where my dad worked when my siblings and I were very young. I want to take them by the old farm house in Atlanta (population 500) where my grandparents lived for more than 70 years. My father and his three brothers were born there.

I want to take them to the land where the old Methodist Church used to stand. I want to tell them about my miraculous experience of Christmas when I was an elementary aged girl singing in the church on Christmas Eve.

I will drive them to Elwood where I lived from ages 10-16. I'll take them past my old house on South K Street and to my church where I attended, then served when I went to college in my 40's.

I will take them to Arcadia where most of my family is buried, my paternal grandparents, parents, cousin, uncle and assorted greats. I will tell them why the tiny cemetery is important to me.

I want to share why I am a Christian and what my ministry means to me. I will talk with them about retreats and growing in faith. I will introduce them to the Catholic sisters in Tipton and on the way home we will go to the Carmelite Monastery.

I want to share what is important in my life, most of all faith. I want to teach them, guide them, and invest myself in their future.

I will one day be an ancestor to their children's children. What I make of my life today will have an influence on my grandchildren's lives. What I share with my grandchildren will have an impact on their children and their children's lives. I want to do my part to make a difference in the world, particularly in children very dear to me.

With your help
I can become
all you want me to be.
I can change
the course of history
in my home,
in my church,
in my family.
I am not great,
nor will people remember me
long after I am gone.
But what I do now
makes a difference,
here, there and around the corner.
I have a purpose
and I will fulfill it
as I listen and follow.
I carry a history with me.
And that history is valuable
to me
and to those around me.
I am blessed
beyond imagination.
I live a gifted life.

Humbly grateful, Andrea