In Her Shadow

In Shakespeare's anthology of poems, The Passionate Pilgrim, he writes:

"He that is thy friend indeed,

He will help thee in thy need:

If thou sorrow, he will weep;

If thou wake, he cannot sleep:

Thus of every grief in heart

He with thee doth bear a part . . ."

In other words, true friends are few and far between--and they are treasures.

This is one of the last pictures I have one of my own best friends, Cookie Grandma. I grew up calling her Mamá María, but once I had my own children my boys christened her with the new moniker, they so identified her with the cookies she loved to shower on them. I love the picture, but there was a time when it really bothered me. It seemed so representative of our relationship. I was always behind Grandma, I was always in her shadow, her dreams for me the driving force that directed my life at critical points. I loved her, but I wanted to be me, to stand on my own two feet, be recognized for myself, follow my own dreams.

Then, at 91 years young, Grandma went home to be with the Lord she loved. Be careful what you wish for . . . I found that being on your own isn't all it's cracked up to be. Although I had appreciated and loved Grandma while she was here, her homegoing left such a vacuum that it took my appreciation of her to a whole other level.

When I turned my back on God as a youth, it was Grandma who, as she did with all her children, prayed me into the Kingdom. When I joined a church filled with erroneous doctrine, guess who prayed and counseled me out of it? Without telling either of us, it was none other than Grandma who prayed that I would go to work in Mexico with my great-aunt, Trinie Valdez, on the Spanish language Christian magazine she edited, Voz en el desierto. God answered Grandma's unspoken prayers and that is how I ended up getting my foot into full -time ministry, a ministry that grew and lasted half a lifetime. And, through it all, the bond forged between grandmother and granddaughter was strengthened.

We became prayer partners and "vent-ors". "Vent-ors?" you ask. Yes, vent-ors. When life drove us crazy and we needed a shoulder to cry on, we would call each other up--and vent. There are things in life that should NOT be made public. Remember what David said when Saul and his sons died? "Publish it not in Gath." Gath was the home of the infamous Goliath, the hotbed of all things Philistine and anti-God. David was saying, "Don't tell the whole godless world about this shameful happening. The news of this tragedy birthed by disobedience to God should stay in-house." Some things are best kept close to the chest. Well, I was Grandma's "in house" and she was mine. We vented to each other in perfect confidence--but with this caveat. As firm believers in Romans 8:28, we were always to ask each other if we had praised the Lord in the situation that was causing us grief (that's a story for another blog).

Incredibly, as close to God as Grandma was, if she had gone through a horrible experience, she would have invariably forgotten to praise God! And the same for me! We became encouragers to each other in the Word and in praise. Once we praised--something in the Heavens broke. Oh, the miracles and hearts we saw changed!

But now Grandma is gone and I don't have my perfect vent-or to call and get encouragement from. I don't have a Grandma with crazy dreams (me? go to Mexico? work with a Christian magazine?} to spur me on to greater things.

But I have Jesus. I vent to Him, try to remember on my own to praise in the hurts of life (in the words of my dear friend, Jeff Book, AG missionary to China, "Life is hard"), and pray that God will give me even a teensy-weensy bit of the dreams He gave Grandma. Even in her old age she was able to drum up ideas that helped her home church!

Now, I shake my head at my younger self. How could I ever have felt diminished for standing behind her? In her shadow I was stronger, braver, and the cover of her love gave me the ability to spread my wings and fly safely. Hmm . . . kinda like the physical counterpart of Psalm 127, "The LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand . . ."

Thank you, Cookie Grandma, for letting me stand in your shadow.