Confessions of the Nana

On Saturday nights our three older grand-girls (Lexi is 3 ½ , Megan is 9 ½ , Kristi is almost 13) spent the night w/ us. They like to spend the night on Saturday because they get to go to church with us on Sunday morning. They love to go to church. We often have quite deep conversations with the girls about Jesus and heaven…they are often the ones who bring up the subjects. Our conversations can become quite interesting and it amazes me the depth of their understanding. The interesting thing is when the youngest doesn’t quite ‘get’ whatever it is we are talking about, and Megan who has an amazing understanding to explain it to her in a way that Lexi can understand. So I sit back and listen and learn from our grandchildren. This past Saturday night the 3 older girls spent the night. We had a nice evening of watching a movie and snuggling. It had been a very busy and tiring day for Scott and me. Actually it had been a very stressful and tiring week for us and Scott had been battling a cold all week. By the time Saturday came around we had a birthday party for my mom… well Saturday night I was exhausted. We all went to bed Saturday very tired, then woke up Sunday morning to rainy, cold nasty, dreary, yucky weather, and Scott was still not feeling well. We woke up a bit later than normal and knew we would not make it to Sunday school on time. So we decided we just were not going to go to church at all. When I told the grand-girls they were disappointed. I went on and fixed them breakfast, in the process of cleaning up the kitchen and I heard the girls talking about not going to church. Our youngest Lexi was VERY disappointed. The oldest Kristi had said… ‘Well it’s probably just because it’s raining out’ as she sat on the couch and hid herself under a blanket. Lexi began following me around asking over and over to explain WHY we were not going to church. I attempted to explain to her our ‘excuse’, that she just was not willing to accept. At some point she walked away and went to the window to look out and quickly came back to me saying “nana, it’s not raining anymore, well maybe a little tiny bit…. NOW can we go to church?” It hit me…God was sending me a message through Lexi and I was just not listening. So I finally said… ‘Ok, Lexi… we are going to church’. We had missed Sunday school and now had 20 minutes to get all three girls and ourselves ready for church and to get there before church started. We made it to church on time and even had a minute or two to spare. Sometimes we get in our own way. We are so overwhelmed w/ the circumstances around us and our own personal feelings that we fail to listen to what God is saying. God used our little 3 ½ yr old grand-girl to get a message through to me. To see the excitement in that little face and the faces of the other two when I told them we WERE going to church was my motivation. I was failing them as their Nana, as a spiritual role model. When I was younger and my boys were little I had this same responsibility with them. And I can tell you there were many times that I did not ‘feel’ like going to church, to get myself and them ready and go. But at times THEY were my inspiration to get my act together and pay attention to their spiritual needs. They encouraged me many times. They reminded me of my responsibilities not only to them but to myself and our family. They probably had no idea that is what was going on, but I can tell you without a doubt God used those little ones to encourage and inspire me back then. I had not remembered those times until this past weekend w/ our grand-girls. I don’t think I’ve ever thanked my boys for being such an inspiration to me when they were little or if they would’ve even understood at that time if I had told them. Thank you Daniel Thank you Anthony And thank you Lexi for reminding me of this once again.