I only have one memory of spending one on one time with my Gran’ma. I have heaps and heaps of wider family memories, but just the one with her by myself. I must have been in primary school at the time as I was left with her for the day while I was sick and Mum had to go do something. I was looking at a piece of her handwriting and noticed the differences between her style of cursive and my own. I loved the old fashioned ‘f’s’ and ‘t’s’ and ‘r’s’ in particular and got her to show me how to form them. She sat so patiently with me and showed me over and over and over how to do them, until I got the flow of it and from that day forward, I started incorporating what she taught me into the way I wrote. The extra curls and swirls were much more artistic than the way that I knew.
I do not think of Grandma every single time I write, but whenever I hone in on the way I now so naturally use those old letters, I remember that she taught me, I remember that day, I remember her ways and who she was, and I remember that she was a woman of prayer.
I’ve had a multitude of reasons this week to dwell on the fact that God dwells outside of time and that prayers themselves are eternal. They leave our hearts and go to His eternal place where they never lose their meaning, they never lose their intent, they never lose their import. We might forget the words that we prayed, and even the groans that so often emanate wordlessly from our heart – but He never does.
My Gran’ma would would sit every day after her lunch, and pray for every member of our ridiculously large family by name. And when she died, in my early 20’s, my Gran’pa took on her prayer mantle.
Every day we move through our lives in a multitude of tasks, many of which so mundane, many of which seem inconsequential. Yet each of them is both evidence of the contents of our heart AND a building block. When I look back on my life, I would certainly have never identified the ones that at the time were so ordinary – but which later shine with an eternal spotlight on them in my mind.
I’m so grateful my life has been bathed in the prayers of not just beautiful parents, but a legacy of Grandparents as well. Their prayers are eternal… as are yours and mine.