I’m a grandmother now. A Mimi, to be precise. Before I know it, this one (in the picture below) will get married and have her first baby, and I will be a great-grandmother.
I’m old enough today, to be carrying several versions of myself inside me, like Russian dolls.
I'll be 50 years old this November. Turning 50 is like having my 21-year-old self still inside me - the one who had just given birth to identical twin girls and who consequently never slept my 21st year. I have inside me the 31-year-old version of myself - the one who was a pastor’s wife, who made Sloppy Joe lentils for her family, and ate everything whole food and low fat.
I even have the 41-year-old Sheila still inside me, now. The one who was trying to raise children who would live right and have no regrets - the 41-year-old momma who home educated all four, who had run hard and long and who had her finish line in sight, whose job was almost done, and whose heart was on the cusp of being shattered in a million pieces.
Boyhood goes from this...
...to this...
From this...
...to this...
I suspected, but didn't know for sure when I was 41, that the "boys of summer" were about to be gone forever. Boyhood innocence sometimes vanishes
in ways we hoped it wouldn't.
Children grow up. They all do.
Yeah. I was a "basketball mom". Whose son was headed for university.
If I'd known then, on that very day right up there, if I'd known then what I know now...
...I would still have done it. All of it.
...I would still have done it. All of it.
The overall story of my life has one theme:
The supremacy of Christ in all of life.
Christ in my life as a teenage girl who overcame being told by classmates grade after grade, year after year that she was ugly, but who placed third in the Junior Miss Pageant - and scored the top score of all contestants in a category called poise and appearance.
Christ the source of joy as a young bride - when I found out that married love was profound and beautiful, but Jesus was even better.
Christ, the giver of peace when my nest suddenly emptied as two beautiful capable daughters married Godly men (see here and here and here),
and two sons went temporarily AWOL, becoming prodigals…and I coped with feeling like the enemy of my soul had won.
and two sons went temporarily AWOL, becoming prodigals…and I coped with feeling like the enemy of my soul had won.
Christ, my all-in-all as a grandmother whose first grandchild, a boy named after my husband, lived with us for almost three years, along with his parents, while his momma and daddy saved up for a house. A house that, little did we know, would be the house next door.
Christ, the giver of grace upon grace upon grace as my other twin daughter and her husband bought the other house next door, and two of my granddaughters moved all their pink tiaras and dolls and shiny shoes into those rooms.
Christ, who redeems every situation, as my oldest son became a first-time dad...
My story is His story. My life has but one context: the sacred-beautiful transforming power of grace, as found in the Gospel of the finished work of Christ.
All my stories find their significance in the One story of who God is. So tell your stories, too. My stories are not about me. Sure, I am the main character in my life story, that's how God made things to be, but the story itself is a manifesto of Him who made me.
What have you been a witness of? Bear witness, sister!
Bearing witness isn't always quoting scripture. It is the telling of story. We....WE are His letters, His workmanship.
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