This Far

Granny likes to sleep in. I mean really SLEEP IN. Left to getting up on her own, noon is the norm. I tried when she first came to our house to wake her in the morning and have her sit up as much as possible. She would lay down for a nap in the afternoon, then get up for supper, watch a movie and go back to bed. I thought that would be a great schedule. It wasn't.

Gran was up and down 10-20 times at night every other day or so. (I don't exaggerate.) She would then fall asleep soundly around 4 or 5 am and if left alone wouldn't move until the afternoon. After a few nights like that, I was sleeping until the afternoon as well.  

I needed a new strategy. My mom was on board with my schedule plans. She thought that was good for her too. But one day she said, "Annie, she's 85. Just let her sleep." So I did.

It is working. Unless she sleeps until 2 pm, I let her get up on her own. She doesn't nap and then she sleeps well at night. 

Whenever she gets up, she likes to have coffee and toast at the kitchen table. She eats, reads her daily devotional and reads the Daily Corinthian. If she gets up at lunchtime, I let her eat her breakfast and I eat my lunch. 

This morning she got up earlier than usual, so we had breakfast together. She at her place at the table and me at mine. (It's my new spot because when she came, she took mine. :) I don't mind.) This morning after we ate, we continued to sit at the table. I noticed something that made me smile. She read out of her big breakfast bible (she has used it for years just for her morning devotionals), her copy of a large print Guideposts, and the paper. I however, used the computer for my bible, my devotional, and my news. (I do keep a notebook and pen with me to write down things that I want to remember.) We sat there in companionable silence, sipping our coffee, meeting Jesus, checking in on the world around us and got ready for our day.

I began thinking about David. About the time in I Chronicles 17 (NLT) when Nathan told him all that God had showed him in a vision about David and his descendants.

⁷ “Now go and say to my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has declared: I took you from tending sheep in the pasture and selected you to be the leader of my people Israel. ⁸ I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have destroyed all your enemies before your eyes. Now I will make your name as famous as anyone who has ever lived on the earth! ⁹ And I will provide a homeland for my people Israel, planting them in a secure place where they will never be disturbed. Evil nations won’t oppress them as they’ve done in the past, ¹⁰ starting from the time I appointed judges to rule my people Israel. And I will defeat all your enemies.“‘Furthermore, I declare that the Lord will build a house for you—a dynasty of kings! ¹¹ For when you die and join your ancestors, I will raise up one of your descendants, one of your sons, and I will make his kingdom strong. ¹² He is the one who will build a house—a temple—for me. And I will secure his throne forever. ¹³ I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my favor from him as I took it from the one who ruled before you. ¹⁴ I will confirm him as king over my house and my kingdom for all time, and his throne will be secure forever.’”

Then David prayed in verse 16:

“Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?

It was in a Beth Moore's Bible study on David that first drew my attention to this verse. She settled on it for herself and her family and I felt the same way she did. Though neither of us have been given what David has been given (a dynastic line to Christ), we both feel humbly overwhelmed by God's blessing on our lives. 

As I sit at the kitchen table, I think about all the things that have happened in Granny's lifetime, my mother's and mine, that could have turned our family's face away from God. Hard, horrible things that came because of others bad choices or our own. Then I think of all we have been spared. All the things we haven't had to go through. And lastly, what a gift it is to be able to sit here and worship the King in a warm, snug, dry kitchen with full bellies and satisfied thirsts. I sit with a heart so full of gratitude for a lineage of believers on both sides of my family. I didn't have to go searching for the answers, I grew up with them being presented to me everyday by imperfect people, whom God had given much grace. 

And if you knew all I know you would know why it is that I also pray in awe this morning, "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?" Oh, thank you, Lord, for "THIS FAR".

"I remember the days of old. I ponder all your great works and think about what you have done. I will lift my hands to you in prayer. I thirst for you as parched land thirsts for rain."

Psalm 143:5-6 (NLT)