Friendship Tea and Conversations with Grandma

To my family, friends, supporters, and readers -

Thank you for your support, comments, prayers, and emails during the last five days.  Greg and I picked up my brother, sister, brother-in-law and niece at the airport on Saturday and made the 9 hour drive to my parent's home on Sunday.   Grandmother's funeral was on Monday afternoon and we were blessed to be there for it.  We were also thankful that the chaplain officiating the service shared the Gospel message as part of the service.  We got back home to Colorado this evening.  The Virginia part of the family fly home tomorrow.

The family was invited to email the chaplain with memories of Grandma.  This is what I wrote and he shared it as part of the funeral service.

One of my special memories happened about 3-4 years ago when I was driving home one weekend from Dallas.  It was almost midnight when I drove past Grandmother's house in the country, but I saw her kitchen light on and saw her face at the window.  So I spontaneously turned into her drive.

She was surprised to see me, but as usual, invited me to have a cup of tea.  So there we were -- Grandmother and I at midnight -- sitting at her kitchen table, sipping friendship tea, and talking like friends. :)  While I have had many visits over a cup of friendship tea around Grandmother's kitchen table, this was special.  It was just the two of us.  We shared from our hearts about many things: how much she missed Grandpa, what God was doing on the mission field in Asia, and the burden on her heart for people in her family and in the community that didn't have a personal relationship with the Lord.

"They tell me they know God, and I'm sure they do.  But they haven't made Jesus Lord of their life."

One of the times [the Hospice chaplain] stopped by to see Grandmother (when she was still at my parent's home), she was extremely anxious.  I was there too, that day, and [he] tried to console her by saying that she would see all her family in heaven.  And Grandmother kept shaking her head and refusing to be consoled.  Perhaps she was just being anxious, as she often was, but I also was remembering that conversation I had had with Grandmother 1-2 years before where she so concerned about family members that were "good" people, but weren't living their lives with Christ as the Lord and Savior.  And that was important to her.

Also at the time, my cousin Eric was finding his way back to the Lord and had been talking to Grandmother about the idea of seeking to glorify God in everything we do.  Said Grandmother to me, "I told him that's what some of us do every day." :)

But I will always cherish the memory of that visit and so many other cookie and tea visits over the years.