~ Saying Goodbye

My family just said goodbye to my Grandmother. She lived a long and faithful life.

We celebrated her life and her legacy.

We sang.

We loved on one another.

We highlighted her uniqueness.

In honor of every piece of candy she ever handed to a grandchild or friend who stopped by. 

Oh how she loved her chocolate!

We sang some more.

We gave voice to the things we loved most about her.

  

 We spent time remembering.

We said goodbye.

When You're Finally Home

Today, my grandmother passed peacefully from this world into her eternal home.

 

 

 

Every tear I cried today brought with it a flood of sweet memories...

 

walking to and from her house because she just lived around the block

playing in her giant backyard (at lease it felt enormous to this little one at the time)

 

telling her I didn't love her anymore and didn't ever want to come to her house again because her candy bowl was empty

 

checking her candy bowl every visit after that and finding it was never empty again

 

having her as my 3rd grade Sunday School teacher and hearing her say you shouldn't smack your gum; it's not ladylike (and never chew gum in church)

picking crab apples from her tree

watching her peel sour green apples in one long peel and her telling me I would get a tummy ache if I ate too many of the peels

seeing her hands dig in the earth and hearing her say the name of every plant in her yard

sneaking into her top bathroom draw to use her gardenia perfume that Daddy Bill had given her (She knew where I'd been; it was obvious, but she never said anything!)

 

watching her care for her neighbors

pretending I was a queen and her very formal green living room chair was my throne

seeing her face peer around the corner with her hair teased up and cold cream on her face and no teeth in her mouth (I thought she was a witch!) and hearing her laugh because she thought it was so funny

hearing her testify in church of her love for her Savior and His faithfulness to her

 

eating her coconut fruit cake (the best!) and her homemade apple jelly

watching her eyes light up every single time a child came close and seeing her scoop them into her lap

hearing we're going to Mama Lois's for dinner because I knew it was probably going to be steak

watching her fill my Daddy Bill's cup over and over with sweet tea at every meal

 

sneaking into her top dresser drawer, admiring the crisp white hankies and putting her first wedding band on my finger (the one my Daddy's daddy gave her) 

 

being very young and asking her if she still loved my grandfather and hearing her say, "I will pray for that man every day of my life"

 

watching her lean over the hospital bed to care for Mother Greer (Daddy Bill's mom) with such gentleness

 

never having a conversation with her that didn't include her lifting her finger toward heaven to give God the credit for something

 

watching the tears fall everytime she remembered my sweet Daddy Bill

 

The memories came like a flood today,

 

like a cleansing flood.

 

I will miss the way she would always put her hands on my face and say, "I wish you could stay longer."

 

I will never forget the person she was and taught me to be.

 

Tonight, she's having a sweet reunion in heaven with the love of her life and the lover of her soul.

 

Her struggle has ended.

 

Her tears are no more.

 

She has won her long, hard race.

 

She's finally home!

 

Feed My Starving Children

It was only two hours, but they experienced more in that short time than I could have possibly hoped to teach them.

It wasn't book-learning, head-knowledge stuff.

It was open-your-eyes, break-your-heart kinda stuff.

The kind of stuff only God can teach.

We watched the training video that told us, "10.9 million kids under age 5 die each year in developing countries? Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60% of these deaths."

 

We saw the heart wrenching photo of the distraught three-year-old girl who weighed little more (14 lbs.) than my youngest did the day he was born (9.2 lbs.).

We saw the amazing photo of the same little girl after she had been fed consistently for seven months, her pudgy face smiling and happy!

 

I had come to this MobilePack prepared to serve, but not quite prepared to be so moved, to be so grateful for our blessings and yet so convicted of our excesses.

 

 

This amazing organization, Feed My Starving Children (FMSC), prepares enough food packs every day to feed 420,000 children. They send these packs to nearly 70 countries "to quickly reverse and prevent malnutrition."

Each pack is filled with chicken, vegetables, soybeans, and rice and all the vitamins and minerals a child needs to grow healthy and strong.

 

Each little rice pack contains six meals.

Each of those meals costs less than 25 cents.

There are 36 rice packs in every box.

If you do the math, that's 216 meals in each box.

 

One box of Manna Rice Packs is enough to feed one child for seven months.

And it only costs around $50 per box.

I had not realized how meaningful it would be to watch my children's hands work to make a difference in someone else's life.

They scooped and poured and measured and packaged and did it all without complaining. 

 

We cheered as we filled each box.

 

Today, in an hour-and-a-half, our crew packed 81boxes.

That's enough to feed 47 children for an entire year.

Last night my children ate until their bellies were full.

They went to bed satisfied and secure.

In the last 24 hours, 18,000 children died from hunger.

I wonder to myself, how will I ever sleep thinking about those 18,000 children,

and the 18,000 who will die tomorrow

and the day after that and the day after that...

How will I ever recover?

I hope I never do!

And I hope my children never do!

Tonight, they will go to bed satisfied and secure - again.

And tonight, we know there are 47 other children who can go to bed satisfied and maybe a little more secure.

Thanks to the efforts of FMSC, enough food will be produced tomorrow, every day in fact, to feed 420,000 more.

 

And they do it all through volunteers working a two hour shift. Visit FMSC's website to find a MobilePack near you or to host your own MobilePack.

 

Two hours is all it takes to save 47 lives.

It's a very small price to pay!

 

 

...if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

Isaiah 58:9-11