Blinders

Grandma meeting my youngest

I believe people are placed in your life for a reason. Some stay for a short season and some for long periods of time, all with different purposes. I believe God always has a plan, although we may not see or understand that plan because we have our human “blinders” on, as my Sunday school teacher likes to say. There are some people that God puts in our lives that we are lucky enough to have for a time long enough that they leave an influential imprint on our soul. When they leave us, we are left with such a void that we sometimes don’t know how to carry on in the same way as we did before.

My grandma was a large influence on me. She died of cancer almost 7 years ago. I had my human blinders on during that time and didn’t see God’s bigger picture. I did not understand why God would take one of the strongest Christian women in my family, allow her to die a drawn out, painful death, and leave us without her and with the question of “Why?”    Grandma was not in pain anymore, but I still selfishly wanted her here. She was the one who took care of my sister and me when my mom had to work at the family business. She was the one that taught me how to play the piano. She was the one who set the example of attending church, took me to visit our elderly relatives in the nursing home, and made us bunny shaped pancakes in the morning after we fell asleep at Grandma and Grandpa’s house during a late night of the adults playing cards. She played the piano for Gary and my wedding, cross-stitched my babies birth announcement keepsakes, and lovingly held her great-grandchildren with the knowledge that her time with them was precious on Earth.  So, why would God choose to take her away sooner than we wanted? I may not ever know the whole answer to that question, but I do know that we do carry on, that good comes from bad situations, and that God’s plan is always better.

We think we’ll never forget a thing about our time with that person, but we do. I hate to admit such a thing, but we do forget things. Our schedule changes.  Our kids grow up. Work gets busy.  See, I forgot that it was my grandma’s birthday until I was helping one of my students write the date a few days ago. How could I forget such a thing? Grandma was the one who remembered everyone in town’s birthday. She died 3 days after my birthday, but still remembered to give me my birthday card before she went.  Then again, when you think about time as eternal, what difference does it make when our birthdays are? It doesn’t really matter what day we were born on; more important is where we spend our birthdays for all eternity.   Also, in the grand scheme of all eternity, what difference does it matter how many years we spend on Earth? It matters more how we spend our time and what we learned, what we taught others, and the decisions we made.

My faith in God grew stronger than it has ever been after watching my grandma’s unwavering faith in God and His promises while going through cancer treatments. My faith in love was never stronger than after watching my grandpa care for my dying grandmother’s every need.  I remembered that example when I was placed in the role of caregiver while Gary spent 2 years recovering from a serious car accident. I believe God rewarded my Grandpa’s faithfulness in the form of his bride now, who is a blessing to the whole family. My family was blessed by forming stronger bonds with each other and with God after going through such hard times.

My confused feelings even carried on into my dreams for a week after we buried Grandma. Every night for a week, I dreamed of Grandma’s grave and of the mound of dirt that covered her body. In hopes of coming to some sort of closure and ridding myself of this horrible dream, I visited her grave by myself one afternoon. Through the tears that flowed while there, I started to talk to Grandma and tell her of my anger and my grief. It was then that I realized that she was not there. She may or may not be able to hear me, but she wasn’t there. She was in such a better place than I could even imagine and that Heaven was where God wanted her. If I was going to believe that God’s plan was always best, then that was going to have to include the fact that sometimes that plan isn’t necessarily my plan. That very night the dream of the grave changed to a dream of a happy, healthy Grandma with a smile that was purer and brighter than I had every seen and she was in a very large building that seemingly had multiple stories and hallways, but the whole building was made of shining glass. There was no doubt in my mind that this was a sign from God meant to comfort me and remind me of His promises.

God still speaks to us through the people He puts in our lives, through situations we are in, and through dreams. If we’re smart enough to take our blinders off, we just might learn something.