THE PASTOR'S WIFE SPEAKS - BECOMING A GRANDMOTHER-IN-TRAINING

Wow, I’m a grandmother in training! 

We are in baby shower mode at our house right now.  

Things have surely changed since I was a young girl.  Not only that; I have noticed that my own experiences at this “motherhood” thing came about in a quite different way than that of my gorgeously attired and perfectly put together daughter’s experiences will be.  We both have experienced, or will be experiencing, a lot of the same feelings and emotions regarding making a home and raising children; but in quite different ways.  I think about this a lot as I watch the progression of her young life unfold and as I see her step into motherhood.  I am amazed at the studies of contrast that I see, and I am reminded that it is often these contrasts that make life more interesting and less boring.  Wisdom reveals itself in a whole new light when you are not following the typical patterns.  

When I married her Dad both he and I were recovering from very destructive divorces.  It was a miracle that either of us could be brave enough to venture into the land of the married again.  We had both enjoyed perfectly planned weddings with all the teas and celebrations; then came the unhappy ever after part of going on to live what turned out to be hellish nightmares in both of our former marriages.  Finally the reality checks came crashing down and two people who did not believe in divorce found themselves walking down that long lonely road.  I was walking it alone, but he had four children all under nine years of age.   The two youngest were twins.  One of those twins is now expecting our first grandchild.   I’m still not sure how we even had time to meet, much less date. 

In contrast to our story, my daughter (from our marriage) finishes school and meets her prince; love at first sight.  They plan their dream wedding, neither of them ever having the blemish of a mistake in their past.  My heart is overwhelmed with gratitude toward God for guiding them so safely and surely.  What a contrast, and I'm glad for her that it turned out this way!

My husband was a very good father and it was quite a job raising four very young and active kids.  Also, for me when it came to dealing with the children, an ex-wife was automatically a part of the package.  It has not been easy for me always having to deal with another woman in making important choices and decisions for them, especially since the two of us have never agreed on anything.   I was raising them daily in our home and dealing with the day-to-day of life, yet she could step right in and cause total chaos whenever she chose to do so.  That part of life required lots of prayer and patience.  It required putting the peace of the children first every time.   I'm sure it felt as stressful on their birth mother's end.   I’m most grateful that my daughter will never have to encounter this type of stressful situation.  I thank God for bringing us all through it without too many injuries and wounds, and I thank God that my grandchild will never have to chose between spending time with her mommy or her daddy.  A broken bridge has now been repaired through the marriage of our daughter to a good man and with the birth of their first child begins a healing direction for the whole family.  We are truly blessed in ways that only we would be able to see, and only we could truly appreciate.      

Getting back to the contrasts between our experiences and the next generation's experiences in our family; I have to also remember how hard the road had been for me after the time from my divorce until I met the right man and married for the last time. Being the hard working career woman that I was, I should have known to stand up for my financial rights in the divorce, but like a million other women who always wanted to believe the best of their mate, I let someone who didn’t care a bit about me walk away with every earthly possession that I had worked very hard to attain.  I should have put up a fight, but I was emotionally unable to do so.  I felt quite wasted after the process was over.  Even worse were the things that money could not buy.  Time and love are the two most precious possessions we have.  They should never be taken for granted or wasted.   After that sad experience, I found myself starting life over with a lot of debts which I had nothing to show for.   My point in bringing up this painful statement from very long ago is that I felt robbed and also felt I had nothing material to offer back in the way of remarriage.  All I had to offer was me and my problems, that was it!  Somehow God took all that brokenness and used it to help form four wonderful lives.  I may have wasted some of  the first of my days and it was true I had nothing to show for them, but I learned quickly.  I had everything to show for the last part of my life; and they were walking and talking and moving in amazing ways.  It was a concept of motherhood that my daughter will not realize, but she will also know something that I cannot know in the process of actually giving birth and creating new life.  Even our blessings stand in contrast, yet they flow together to create God's masterpiece He painted and called our family.  Not one brush-stroke could be changed and give us the same wonderful results that have developed.   The contrasts have only made us more beautiful.

Somehow my husband of the last 21 years found me and loved me in spite of my sad circumstances.  We knew it was meant to be, but this was truly a marriage, not a show for the world to watch.   Neither of us were about playing, entertaining or putting up a front.  Life was brutally honest.  We were in the trenches together night and day doing that survival dance that people always have to do eventually.   It wasn't easy to put it together while he was paying almost everything he had in child support and I was trying to pay down a mountain of debt with nothing to show for it.  

We got married by the Justice of The Peace in a small-town county courthouse with four small children as the witnesses.  We had to save for three months just to have enough extra money to buy the marriage license.  Things were that tight financially.   We would have liked a nice little wedding with all our family and friends, and we used to say we were going to have a ceremony one day to repeat our vows in a church full of friends when we got a little extra money.  Little did we know there would always be mortgages, doctor bills, school fees, braces, huge grocery bills, constant car pool expenses, taxes, cars for us as well as four children starting out their working lives, insurance for six for a long period of time, then college, teas, showers and weddings for all.  Now we are in baby shower mode.  It all suddenly seems like a blink and all the things that I thought would be very hard to pull off don't seem so hard any more.  God keeps His clock and we all keep making the circle and it all works out.  We only move forward, we never move back.

Don’t misunderstand this, we’ve enjoyed every moment!  Not one second even of the hard times would I ever think of giving back.

Yet, it is just SUCH a study in contrast to look at  how we started out and how my daughter who is now expecting started out that I am sometimes held in awe of the whole picture that is being painted.  

I remember my parents looking at us in amazement as we sat down in their living room and gave them the news that we were going to marry.  No one expected much of either of us after our past problems, and everyone around us could only see how hard it was going to be.  I doubt any one thought we would survive the odds.  Instead of a shower or tea, we got lots of free advice from well meaning friends.  We started in the minus zero mode and had nothing between us but determination.  Our honeymoon happened in the little cottage we rented  to live in for $425 a month, and the days off only lasted through the weekend.  My husband had to go right back to work and so did I.  There was one highlight in it all that I will ever be grateful for.  The little group of office workers I worked with were very kind to us.  They gave me a surprise luncheon/shower at work one day.  They treated me to a meal in one of the nicest restaurants in town and everyone came.  They had all gone in together to buy many pieces of dinnerware from a china pattern that I loved and had already started collecting.  I took my elegant new china home to our tiny little rental and we had a candlelight dinner in our cozy little cottage.  It was great!  We always felt blessed.  I will never forget that generosity from those sweet people.  It meant more to me than all the extravagant teas and showers of my first marriage.  It was a sweet moment in time that will always be a good memory.

Somehow we never got around to that simple elegant little party for ourselves where we would repeat our vows in front of everyone; but we have not spared a dime on making sure our children had those things and those special moments.  I’ve been amazed at how we have been provided by God just what we needed whenever we really needed it to do the important things that we wanted to do.   

Our simple little courthouse wedding with a flat tire to change on the way in a broken down car so greatly contrasts with the four hundred person wedding and the renting of a chapel and a museum for the reception for one of our daughter’s weddings.  She had every little detail she wanted, right down to the last little exotic flower color, then she moved into a perfect first house, with a perfect diamond ring on her finger and of course, her groom stepped right up into a management position with his company right after the wedding.  They went on a trip to Europe for their honeymoon and have been back again over the first three and one-half years of their marriage.  They sold the perfect little house and bought a perfect larger house in a sweet little community to raise a family.  They quickly hired an interior designer and furnished the house with perfect furnishings that went right along with all the designer things they received as wedding presents.  They now enjoy living in a perfect little community that will offer all the advantages that a neighborhood should offer to a growing family, and of course, they are doing this in the style they enjoy.  There have been no compromises.  They are both driving good cars to their management positions at work every day and planning how to schedule enough off-time around the multitude of friends who are gathering to give them several baby parties where they will receive lovely and extravagantly luxurious gifts.  They will delight in putting all of the new things into the newly and perfectly decorated nursery once the precious little one arrives.      

Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand the facts here.  I realize all of this perfection took a lot of planning and hard work on their part.  I know it wasn't always that easy and magical as it seems.  They live in real life in a real world just like the rest of us.   They work hard long hours at real jobs.  Keeping the world perfect at all times requires a great deal of thought, energy and time.  They have also been very creative and thoughtful about certain things.  I’m very proud of all their hard work and planning; yet  I still find myself simply amazed at how different it was for us in starting out our own marriage.   I keep thinking about the contrasts of our life styles, yet how both of us have turned out to be happy couples.  It is a great mystery that only God could explain!  There seems to be no magical five step program to happiness.   No rhyme, no rhythm, no pattern or design.  There is only one common denominator that always comes up.  Love equals happiness and joy.

After our courthouse marriage we rented a tiny little cottage in a small college town and my husband struggled to move ahead in his career.  We furnished the house by shopping yard sales and second hand stores.  It was cozy and clean and we have fond memories of being there.  When we gained full custody of the children, not long after we were married, we needed a bigger place to live.  We bought a small three bedroom house in the country and planned to build two bedrooms ourselves in the unfinished basement to save money and yet still have the space we needed.  We worked very hard to attain our standard of living with almost everything being supplied with a lot of  labor, patience and hard work.  Nothing ever came easy and starting out with a full house in the beginning, we were never able to get ahead.  We grew our own garden back then, and all our clothes came from second hand stores and the goodwill.  We picked them out carefully, so nobody ever knew  or even noticed this.  Our whole house was furnished from used furniture that other people were getting ready to discard; still it was cozy and clean and it always felt like home.  No one ever gave a thought to how the furniture was attained.  No one ever worried that every thing didn't appear to be the next shot for a magazine cover.  Thank God there was no Pinterest in those days!  It would not have mattered though because a computer was a great luxury and it was a long time before we bought one of those.

Now, I am looking at the whole different world, my daughter is starting her family in.  She will have those magic moments after the birth of her baby where they take those lovely black and white photos of Mom and Dad looking in wonder at their first child.  I'm sure they will give us one on some special occasion and we will cherish it.   I'm very happy for her to have this!  I'm amazed and happy to know that her life just keeps unfolding like the pages from a fairy tale, and again, I see the contrasting way that we both have walked into the profession of motherhood.

 Suddenly, overnight, I had eight large eyes looking up at me every morning.  They were already realizing that I would now be the person to furnish their every need.  They had the ability to talk; but had not yet developed the ability to reason.  It was a bit overwhelming.  I barely knew them; but I loved them.  I closed my eyes, lifted up a prayer and dove into the busiest life any woman could ever imagine.  It all worked out simply because we all had that magic ability to love.  That factor is the one thing, the beautiful common thread that I share in the motherhood experience with my daughter so far.  I know she will love her children with all her heart.  If I had to pick the one common ground for both of us to share in the world, I would have chosen this same one all over again.  It is love that makes every situation work out in the end, no matter how rich or poor, ignorant or intelligent, young or old, perfect or imperfect  you are.  It is the love of God that He deposits in the heart of every human being that walks the earth who is willing to reach down deep and express it to others.  It is only love that really counts, and in that one thing we have no contrasts.  

My daughter lives in a very indulgent world.  It would be easy to become self-centered and plastic in that world; but she has remained true to the values that we instilled in her as a child, and she has not forgotten how to be thoughtful, thankful and to show love to others all along the way.  She is still generous and kind and giving, only now she has more to be generous with.  That tells me that even though we did not always have the picture perfect “Better Homes and Gardens” life as she was growing up, something more valuable went on with her growing up time in our home that “took” and some of it will spill over from her, her husband, and us to our soon coming grandchild.  It melts my heart and gives me hope.   My joy is full as I stand in a place where all walls of contrast have slowly dissolved and disappeared by the love and care around them.    

So it is with that thought that I planned her baby party.   Baby parties are something foreign to me.  I never had one, and I’ve never given one before.   I received all four of my children overnight with nothing but a garbage sack full of crumpled and ratty clothes to go with them.    

I enter the world of baby parties a complete novice.   I actually did not originally think it would be proper for me to even do this thing, but I am told and was assured by all concerned  that the rules have changed drastically and mothers, step-mothers, grandmothers, and mother-in-laws are often the ones handling the parties these days for their expectant daughters.  So be it - on with the fun.  

I also learned that It is not fashionable these days to say “shower” or “tea” , did you know that?  It must be “party” and every activity must be gender neutral, meaning that both sexes should be invited to attend the party and participate.  

I have, as I've addressed and  issued almost 75 invitations to sweet, thoughtful and caring people, kept the “love” factor in mind.  I have followed the fashion and trends of this generation’s demands, and I have been amazed at how much people have spent on items that will only be used less than a year in a baby’s lifetime.  No second hand items for this little girl!  I promise you she will only have the best.  

But I have a few grandmother tricks up my sleeve that money can’t buy and time can’t steal away.  

It will be a good “party!”  I'm so very proud of our daughter and son-in-law, and I simply can't wait to meet our new granddaughter!

God is so good.  Especially to grandmothers!