My Grandma Belva was a gift, a blessing and an inspiration to me, and she helped shape who I am today. Grandma’s life was far from easy, but she never complained or dwelled on it. Grandma lived in a small town of about 600 people with her husband Lawrence and their 3 young daughters. Lawrence was a projectionist at the theater in town. The theater had a midnight matinee on Christmas Eve, and one Christmas Eve, the film started on fire and Lawrence was unable to get out. He succumbed to the fire, leaving my Grandma a young widow alone to raise 3 little daughters.

Fast forward many, many years, my Grandma Belva married my Grandpa Gene when was I was a small child. My Mom was married at that time and had 4 small children. One day my Dad left our house and never returned, leaving my Mom alone to care for 4 kids, all under the age of 6 by herself. Grandma and Grandpa were always there for us. They would come over with a bag or 2 of groceries when we needed it most. They would also often take all 4 of us kids for a Sunday drive, which I know now, was a mental health break for our Mom, as much as entertainment for us. There is rarely a photo of either of them that didn’t include one of their Grandchildren.

Sometime in the early 1990’s, Grandma got very sick, was hospitalized for quite some time and the doctors didn’t expect her to survive, but praise God, she slowly recovered. She was transferred to a nursing home in New Hope (which was fairly close to where my family and I lived), for rehab and to regain her strength. At the time, I had recently lost my job at the company I had worked at for 17 years, due to the relocation of the company. I was devastated and afraid due to the loss of my job, but God had a different and very important plan for me. At least 2 times a week, I would pack a bag with snacks, toys and books for my youngest son Ben, who at the time was 2. We would venture over to New Hope to the nursing home and spend hours with Grandma, trying to encourage her to get stronger so she could go back home. Besides Grandma, many of the residents began to anxiously await our visits and thoroughly enjoyed interacting with my sweet little son. Then the day that we had waited for arrived. Grandma was well enough to go home. She told everyone she saw after that, “it wasn’t the doctors that made me well, it was my very own Dr. Ben”. My 2 year-old son had brought such joy to the residents of that nursing home.

Long story, but my Grandma passed away in 2010 at age of 99 1/4 and I still miss her. The loss of my job, while devastating, was all part of God’s plan for my life. It allowed me to be there for my Grandma and It brought me to the next chapter in my life, being a member of the staff at Grace for nearly 24 years.

I have always loved 1 Corinthians 13. It is titled in the NRSV Bible, The Gift of Love. Many people think of it as Scripture for weddings, but I read it often and I even have a wooden plaque on my wall of 1 Corinthians 13:13. ¹³And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Thanks be to God for his many blessings!

1 Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. ⁴Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.⁸Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. ⁹For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; ¹⁰but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.