La Mia Nonna ~ My Grandmother

This morning, I decided to read all of the red letter words of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke.  When I came upon Him sending out His disciples in chapter 9, I was suddenly reminded of my grandmother.  But why?  How strange.  Then I realized that my grandmother had been the first person to share Jesus with me.

As a little girl, I spent many an overnight at grandma's house.  Bedtime there was special.  From the dresser drawer, she'd pull out a very plain, black notebook binder filled with torn out magazine pages of Bible stories she'd read to me.  Then we'd look at a Little Golden Book of Prayers together.  My favorite illustration was of a blonde-haired girl kneeling at her bedside praying with her head bowed.  I think my grandma and I both thought of her as me.

Then at the ripe old age of nine or ten, I discovered choice.  Grandma was always ready to drive all the way down the hill on Sundays to take my younger brother and me all the way back up the hill to her Presbyterian church, which was only a block away from her house.  But sometimes, if we hadn't already chosen to go to the horseraces with our Irish grandfather instead, we'd sneak out of the house to go fishing before she arrived.

When Halloween rolled around, I thought my grandma was really mean.  While all of the neighbors would greet us costumed trick-or-treaters with loads of candy (except the dentist who gave out disappointing toothbrushes and toothpaste), my grandma's house was always dark.  Curtains drawn closed.  Front porch light turned off.  Universal signals to all trick-or-treaters not to bother ringing the doorbell.  But one time, I did.  I was sure she was inside.  Hiding.  I rang, but she didn't answer.  I was so hurt.  It was me!  Didn't she know?  Didn't she care?  Only decades later did I understand why she'd left those silly candles glowing in her picture window: to shine His light into the darkness.  Today I hate Halloween.

Thank you, Lord, for my grandma.  For sharing her faith in Jesus with me.  For reading me Bible stories, and teaching me how to pray.  For providing me with a solid foundation upon which to land when I fell at His feet after a lifetime of wild and crazy days of disobedience.

"Train up a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not depart from it."
(Proverbs 22:6)