There were few rules and regulations when our grandchildren visited us each summer. Somehow they just knew what was expected of them and I knew what was expected of us.
They would have to make their beds every morning ; not complain about my efforts to feed them (my husband had learned this years earlier) and attend Vacation Bible School at the church. (Which actually, they very much enjoyed.)
We would take them to swimming classes, have movie evenings with treats twice a week and let them play in the yard with the hose and a slippery slide for company or on rainy days in the basement playing out “Star Wars” themes.
It worked out rather well.
When grandson Mike was in his teens I visited and found his bedroom a complete disaster. I couldn’t even find the bed. When I questioned him he said he just couldn’t figure out how to clean up the mess. “Bring me three boxes” I directed “and I will show you how it is done.”
He stood in awe as I divided things into the boxes…finally making a path to the closet where his job was to hang up his clothes. In an hour we were done and in the process had found some money he had lost.
A few years ago he married and shared with me a secret he had found out. “You know grandma, it only takes five minutes to make the bed.” His new wife had achieved what I had not been able to years earlier.
Yes, many of us were taught values and disciplines that we disregarded in our youth. Later we find we have revived them and they have been a real asset. I’m a firm believer in relationships for they can achieve the impossible at times. Attending a school reunion is a lesson in achievements, often finding that those who hadn’t shown that much promise in the past had done very well, thanks to a wife or husband that recognized the potential in them.
I’m glad God knows our potential and has the patience and compassion to be patient with our learning process. I never could play basketball…too short, too clumsy but I did write articles for the school newspaper. In math, I barely skimmed through but I could sew a straight seam in home economics.
I’m sure my first efforts in getting to know the Lord were pretty simplistic but I have never forgotten my first solo in church and neither has He.
Life is a learning curve and I know there is still lots for me to learn…we’ll see how many years He will give me to find out what He wants me to know.
