Grammy's Memorial

Saturday we celebrated Grammy's life at a memorial service for her. She was described as loving, caring, non-assuming, a hard-worker. She loved family and photography and she had a great laugh. Sometimes I tease Shaun that I married him so I could get a taste of having grandparents.

Although I'm so grateful for the godly heritage that my grandparents left me, I never really knew them, as the one living set lived 2000 miles away. I've been in Shaun's family, dating and married, for about 19 years, so I've gotten to know three sets of grandparents well.

Her service was beautiful and most of our family shared something. Both my mom and dad were there, which was special for me, too.

Avery burst into tears when it was time for her to go on stage, so Jared was on his own. He did a great job reciting Psalm 23.

Here's a couple recent pictures of Grammy with the girls (that's her daughter, Shaun's mom in the white sweater). Even though she suffered from Dementia for many years and for the last couple didn't know who we were, she always, always delighted in seeing the girls. They always seemed to be able to put a spark in her eye and give her some clarity of thought.

We spent the evening with her two days before she went into the hospital for the last time and she was the best I'd seen her in a long while. She was talking in complete sentences, interacting with the girls and read some books to them. She even scolded Avery for "hurting" her sister. I'm grateful she had the chance to meet our girls and for them to know her.

Our family was the last to leave after a wonderful reception time. The fact that the church was packed out for a service of an 89-year-old is very telling of the lives they led and the people they touched in their 60 years together. Very inspiring.

The memorial reception was held in the same hall that our wedding reception was held, nearly 15 years ago. As we were getting ready to leave, I remembered us doing this picture on our wedding day and thought it'd be fun to do a then and now picture.

So here's then...

...And here's nowI'm not always happy about it, but on this day I was grateful that God does not show us our life in one shot. (I would have freaked out to see our family picture look like this!) I'm glad I don't know the whole plan or even the next 15 years. He's proven Himself over and over to be a faithful and loving God and I'm going to put my trust in Him for my next breath, for what He has in store for me today, tomorrow and 15 years from now. God, help me to follow Your plan and be content to walk in Your will. Your ways are so much better than anything I could ever conjure up.

"your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." Psalm 139:16