I hope you're having a great Memorial day. I write these posts at night so I'm not sure what the weather is going to be like tomorrow (AKA Memorial day), but I think it's supposed to be beautiful! We did have a little storm tonight. It was mostly just lightning, which I always love to see. I have this crazy love of thunder and lightning storms and rain and stuff like that....
I am again going to fail to make a blog post in theme with today's holiday. Maybe I'll get around to something like that at a later date. But I've wanted to do this post for awhile now, and I felt like today was a good day to do it.
Awhile ago, I made a little post about some things that have happened in my life during the year of 2014. In that post, I mentioned that my grandma had died. My great-grandma Beverly Brown to be precise. She went home to her Savior the day before Mother's Day of 2014. And I honestly cannot even tell you how much I love my Grandma.
She was one of the sweetest ladies I have ever known. There were all of these little things about her that I loved. A long time ago, my younger brother used to mess with the flappy skin on her arm, and she would always give him a pinch because of it. And she just had this Grandma smell to her! You'd bend down to give her a hug and just be overwhelmed with it in the best way, and she'd be crying and saying "oh, oh," in this special way of hers because she hadn't seen us in years. She always gave me the cutest little Avon things too. I have this one angel necklace from her that I wore one year when I watched the Kentucky Derby online, and I actually wore it to her memorial service as well. She had her down days, but my dad could get her to laugh. Her laugh was this sweet little old lady laugh that just made you smile and want to reach across the phone and give her a hug. And my grandma was so forgiving and loving to everyone. To my dad, to her daughters, my grandpa... Everyone!
My grandma had been sick for awhile, and we knew that she didn't have much longer. And early one Saturday morning (or early to me, at least), the Saturday before Mother's Day, my dad came into my room and told me that Grandma Bev had died. I knew it was coming, but I was still heartbroken. I cried quietly for a little while and I decided I wasn't ready to get up yet. So I went back to sleep. Eventually I did get up, and we spent a lot of that day talking about Grandma and the things we remembered about her. It was a sad day, but we knew that Grandma was home in heaven with Jesus. So it was a happy day too.
And now I have to tell about our dear friends the Hohenstreets. Our families have known each other for years, and we have been close friends for a long time. My brother has always been friends with their two boys, my mother with Mrs. Beth, and my dad with Mr. Seth, who is also the pastor of our church. I was friends with all of them.
But when I was about ten, I wanted nothing more than to have a friend. I mean, like the kind of friend that knew all of your secrets and you knew all of hers. That kind of thing. Well, then the Hohenstreets had little Grace. Gracie is about 8 years younger than me, but I love her so, so much. She is just the sweetest little girl and she really is one of my best friends now. I have friends that are my age, but Grace came along when I really needed her.
So, since we are such good friends with the Hohenstreets, we had told them about our Grandma. And that evening, they asked us if it would be okay if they stopped by to say hello and bring us some candy bars. Of course, we said yes.
And the moment they walked in the door, I knew something was up. Grace kept stopping in the middle of playing with me (which is a REALLY big deal) to go upstairs and whisper something to her mom. My brain was frantically scrambling with what could be going on, and I did come up with a few guesses.
Right as they were getting ready to leave, they finally admitted that there was something going on. Mrs. Beth told Gracie to go ahead and tell us, but sweet little Grace got shy. So my brother offered up the guess that Pretty, Grace's cat, was pregnant. This was relatively funny, but it was even more so when the real answer was revealed.
Mrs. Beth was, in fact, pregnant.
And I am still struck by this. On the day my Grandma died, our best friends were going to have another baby. I mean, what?!? This just doesn't seem right. Things like that are supposed to come one at a time, in order. Well no, actually, they're not.
This whole thing served to remind me that life is a bittersweet tangled mess of a journey. Every day you experience pain, every day you experience joy. Maybe not on the same level as what happened to me, but you still do. Your whole life is like that. The ups and downs and the happies and sads are all meshed and woven together. It may seem crazy as its happening, but you suddenly look up and see this big, beautiful tapestry. And it wouldn't be as beautiful if it was all just pink and yellow and red, would it? Life needs some blues and purples to help even everything out and to highlight the brighter colors. Without that, what would your tapestry look like?
You just have to keep holding on and trust that if God can make a plan to save the entire world, then he can take care of your life and that he has a reason for those crazy days where it seems like there's too much of everything for you to handle.
As a closing note, I wanted to share this song with all of you. It's called "Emphasis" by Sleeping at Last. It has swiftly become one of my favorites, and I hope it touches all of you. :)
Have a wonderful week readers!
MR
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