I know this sounds like a weird topic to blog about, but, it is something pretty meaningful to me right now. One year ago today, my Grandpa died. This grandpa was my favorite grandpa. He was the one who attended my childhood birthday parties, who picked me & my siblings up and took us to fun places (like the Flea Market or McDonald’s), and who always had a hug waiting for me every time I saw him. He was special to me. So, when he died one year ago it was, as you could imagine, a time of grieving and mourning.
All hard things in life come with great lessons.
From Grandpa’s death I learned a number of things. A hard situation would not be bearable to me if I knew it was for nothing… if I did not receive some sort of blessing from the midst of it. These are the things I learned from Grandpa’s death.
1. ) Life is short. 91 years of life is short. I wish there was more time.
2. ) Make the Day Matter. Days pass and I often do not give them much thought. It seems as if I am waiting for the next moment or just doing my best to survive the day and make it one more day. Very little thought, thus far, has been put into planning out my legacy and what I have power to to do and change. Death has a way of making you evaluate life.
3. ) Each Day Is to be Counted. Grandpa was taken to the hospital for a severe infection of the blood. For 2 very long days he fought that infection and in the middle of this my Dad began counting Grandpa’s every day. Dad wrote a huge number on a white board in Grandpa’s room : 33,530 days. And, each day that Grandpa lived, we added one more day. This affected me greatly. Each day is a blessing. Each day was a miracle. Each day mattered. The next day : 33,531. Another miracle. The next day : 33, 532. Another miracle. Grandpa lived a total of 33,532 days. That is a lot of days and a lot of miracles. I can’t control my sleeping and waking or my breathing. Life is a miracle and to be counted. I have lived 12,842 days! Tomorrow, I will rejoice at one more day : 12, 843 days!
4. ) God heals. Our family prayed like we never had and in unison that Grandpa’s infection would be taken away. And, it was! The Lord, our God, Jehovah Rapha heals! Deep down, I hope that God will heal … I hear about people all the time who have had a miraculous healing and now, our family can say the same thing. I am praying for God to do it again… to heal my darling Maisie girl – I know God heals now and I wait for her healing as a result.
5.) God chooses the day and time a person dies. Grandpa did not die from a blood infection instead he died from choking on a piece of ice. I do not know why God chose this, but, I know that God chose that time. God showed our family great love and mercy by healing Grandpa, but, ultimately, God chose the time and it came from a very simple and painless situation.
6.) I have to take care of myself in order to care for the people around me. At the time of Grandpa’s death I was in the middle of a deadline and was pulling a number of late hours to meet my deadline. I was exhausted going into this and then I tried to add the stress of Grandpa’s illness, hospital visits, errands for the family, meals for the family or whatever else I needed to do and I found myself quickly drained. I realized that even though I was just a grandchild and in reality I could not offer much, I could support my grandma, parents and aunts and uncles as they gathered and supported grandpa. And, a huge light bulb went off. I could not care for my family, meet a deadline AND go through this without taking care of my body. So, I had to do a hard thing and ask for a work extension. I had to choose sleep over work. I had to momentarily quit my tough workout program (Insanity) to conserve energy. I had to choose to eat healthy food and drink to fuel my body because the honest truth was that I had no idea what the next day would be like. I had to take care of the things I could take care of in order to be prepared for the next day. I can’t bank on a perfectly healthy, normal, mundane and controlled life… tomorrow is full of surprises, so, I had to be ready for it physically. In many ways, because of my workout programs, I had trained my body for this. But, because of a lack of sleep, a tired Christy was not capable of caring for anyone if Christy had not properly cared for herself.
7. ) Family is what matters. It’s easy to get distracted by television, books, activities and work. At the end of the day, when a person’s life is in limbo, you can count on very few things having meaning… but, family, well, that’s what I found mattered most.
8.) God is generous. Grandpa died in February. At the time of his death, 3 of his grandchildren were pregnant. God is so merciful and generous – when grandpa died, you would of thought there would be an even exchange of life… instead He took one, and, gave three. He’s generous!
9.) Heaven is a comfort. I never realized what a comfort Heaven could be. My old way of thinking was simply that Heaven would be where I went when I died because I believe that Jesus is the son of God and came to take away my sin and punishment. But, there is more. People tell you all the time you will get to meet up with your loved ones in heaven, but, really hoping for it in your every day life is so very different. The hope of heaven makes tough stuff bearable…one day the tough things of life (like death!) will never again cause pain. But, more than just the absence of pain – we will one day be with Jesus. This blows my mind. And, the icing on the cake… The hope of heaven is looking forward to a restored body. The hope of heaven is restoration to all of creation. The hope of heaven means no more lies and no more evil. The hope of heaven is joy! Where we are at right now is just temporary… we are here for a short time, so, this changes my every day life and where I put my hope.
There are many more lessons that I learned, but, these are the big ones. So, even though, it was tough to loose my favorite grandpa, well, I am grateful for the lessons learned…. Blessings in and through the tough stuff.
Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ~ James 4:14 (NIV)
Be very careful, then, how you live–not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:15-16)
