Since my grandma is not able to leave the house often, she writes a lot of letters--to her kids, grandkids, friends, and other relatives. I learned to look forward to her letters when I was at college my freshman year. With each new letter, I got to know my grandma better, and I began to rely on her words of wisdom. One letter she wrote to me in November of 2009 will always make me tear up. The letter spoke of her passion for living, but her excitement for going to Heaven to be with Jesus. Having come so close to losing her in the past, it meant the world to read these words:
"A dear one said to me recently - 'I envy you - you are close to entering heaven.' And they were correct. It can't be too much longer - but I thought afterward that this one has time yet to invest in the Lord's work and service and to see many answers to prayer and the Lord's working in their own life - and in the lives of those for whom they pray!!! It is a great life to be a child of GOD'S!!!"
Even as I visited her today, she had an incredible confidence in God's good plan for her life. When I asked her to describe how her perspective had changed, she said: "Honestly, I think God has allowed me to live as long as I have to experience hardship. My life has not been hard compared to the hardship that a lot of people have experienced." This is coming from a woman who traveled to the other side of the world to live in poverty and unsanitary conditions to share the God whom she adores. She continues, "Through hardships, God is revealing our lacks, needs, and his ability to provide for an entire person if we are willing to grow and become stronger, better people." You can't help but admire someone who can say all this of a God who has allowed her to go through a traumatic stroke. Instead, she says "Although I would not have chosen to have a stroke, I am glad that God allowed me to go through it. It made me more confident that God will see me through whatever is ahead." If the stroke has done anything to the perspective of my grandma, it has strengthened her faith in God.
She also wanted to share this verse with us:
Jeremiah 33:3New International Version (NIV)3 ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’
To my grandmother, it was "great and unsearchable" that she would be able to recover so well from the stroke. In fact, she hadn't been able to go to church basically at all in the past 6 years. However, due to therapy from a recent episode with her kidneys, she has been strong enough to go to church consistently!
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