Growth Spurt

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Margaret

All of us grandmas love our grands. They bring fresh energy into our aging worlds and insist on hope for the future. They also let us squeeze their beautiful baby flesh.

My five grands, age 2 and under, live many miles from me, and while we’re apart they’re growing and changing. This week I received a packet of new pictures from my daughter-in-law, Katy, sent from their home in England.

As I studied each photo, my heart ached to be with these little people. I hardly recognized Thomas and Evelyn, nearly 6 months older than when I saw them last. When you’re only 1 year old, half a year causes dramatic change.

Last night I watched a several-minute video on Facebook of my 2 Florida babies playing in the tub. Listening to Skylar sing “Old McDonald” as she poured water, oblivious to being videoed, made me want to log onto www.cheaptickets.com

If these 5 would stay the same as when I left them last, our separations wouldn’t be so bad. But they continually change in appearance and grow in skills, no matter how badly I want them to stop. Nicholas and Micah have quintupled their vocabulary, and I’ve not been there to talk with them. That hurts! The only way to cope with this disturbing phenomenon is to keep in touch as best we can and schedule times of togetherness.

From the perspective of my 5 grands, I’m not changing much. I probably seem exactly the same to them, each time we’re together, but the truth is I’m changing, too. Steadily and surely I’m accumulating more wrinkles, gaining in forgetfulness and losing in strength. As much as I’d like to halt those changes, I can’t.

So my babies are changing, I’m changing, and then there is Nate.

From an earthly perspective, he’ll be forever 64. In his absence I’ve turned 65 and soon will hit 66. Although we were always 10 days apart in age, today we’ve grown 528 days apart. He’ll stay put, and I’ll keep counting. He’ll never have gray hair or get senile. His life as Nathan Nyman is frozen in time the way I wish my grandchildren would freeze between visits and my aging would come to a screeching halt.

Of course the reality of Nate’s agelessness is that he’s actually changed more dramatically than me or any of my 5 grands. He’s brand new, glorified, radically different. If I could get a glimpse of him, I’d probably gasp in wonder. It’s encouraging to know God has promised that all of us will one day be changed in the same ways Nate has been. The clock will stop, and we’ll be glad.

But there’s a catch: we have to wait until God schedules the change, because even www.cheaptickets.com can’t make it happen.

”In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye… we shall be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15:52)

The Footprints We Leave

Posted on May 8, 2011 by Margaret

Singer Steve Green wrote a song that speaks of the generation before us living high-road examples of faith:

Those who’ve gone before us line the way,
Cheering on the faithful, encouraging the weary,
Their lives a stirring testament to God’s sustaining grace.

I look back to my four grandparents, and although three of them had “gone” before I was born, they left footprints of lives that were “stirring testaments to God’s grace.” Each of them lived through severe hardship, yet letters we found were proof of strong relationships with the Lord.

The one grandparent I did know, my mother’s mother Signa, died when I was three. I have only a handful of memories, but she did two significant things for me. She raised my mom, and she was a faithful witness for Christ.

Signa came to America from Sweden as a young girl and married a widower whose 26 year old wife had died of pneumonia leaving him with a baby boy. Signa saw a need and stepped in to help when little Everett was 3, marrying into motherhood in 1908.

After Signa and Ed had been married 5 years, Everett died in a school yard accident, crushed by a heavy iron gate that fell off its hinges. At that time, Signa had given her husband three additional children that were ages 4, 2, and 1. A 4th and 5th child would follow. But death struck a second blow when another son died at 6 months.

Our Mom remembered standing next to her father as this baby brother died in his arms. Overcome with sorrow, Signa had left the room, unable to bear the sight of a second child passing away.

Signa struggled with asthma most of her life, necessitating leaving smoky Chicago during summer’s heat. Her husband, together with 5 other men, bought a cottage in Michigan, and as school let out, Signa left for “the country.” She took her brood of 5 and also the 6 children of a widowed relative. Without benefit of electricity or running water, Signa cared for 11 children by herself from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

When school resumed, she shipped the children home to her husband and stayed alone in Michigan until the first frost. No doubt this was a nourishing time for her, and the photo shows a worn-out but joyful Signa (on the right) enjoying a day at the beach with a friend.

Signa dealt with the stranglehold of the Great Depression, her husband’s diabetes, and eventually his terminal cancer. She was also concerned over one of her children who was epileptic, keeping her “at home” throughout her life. Signa died in her sleep at age 69, her faith in tact and her witness strong.

The chorus of Steve Green’s song could very well have been Signa’s prayer for the generations to follow:

Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful.
May the fire of our devotion light their way.
May the footprints that we leave
Lead them to believe
And the lives we live inspire them to obey.

Signa was quietly remarkable, and I hope she knows the footprints she left have indeed inspired us. That’s because the steps she followed were those of God.

“I’ve followed [the Lord] closely, my feet in his footprints, not once swerving from his way.” (Job 23:11)

Divine Design

Posted on April 23, 2011 by Margaret

This weekend, 4000 miles away from me, my British grandbaby-twins are celebrating their first birthdays. Missing out on all the fun, I’m chastising myself for not having arranged to be on hand for the party. It would have been a weekend of three hallelujahs: Evelyn, Thomas and Easter!

Today in honor of these one year olds, I went back and re-read my blog posts from the 12 days I spent in England with them when they were newborns, and viewed the 112 photos posted during my 10 day visit last fall (with Nelson and Klaus). Hans, Katy and all three children came to the States in September (Blog post: “Surprise!” Sept 8, 2010) and again for 5 weeks at Christmas.

Four trans-Atlantic together-times in one year is pretty good. Will we do as well in 2011?

Children change radically during that first year, tripling their birth weights and learning a thousand skills. Never again in their lives will they develop at such a pace, and missing the majority of it is difficult. But I’m thankful for modern technology that keeps us up-to-date.

Small children are potent reminders of the passing of time. Watching them change so extensively that first year finds parents and grandparents huffing and puffing just to keep up, and I don’t mean with the speed of their crawling. Some of their growth occurs so quickly we hardly have a memory of it.

Looking back one year ago when Evelyn and Thomas were helpless newborns, we didn’t know them well and were just beginning to get acquainted. Today we see them as individuals with specific personality traits, opinions and bents, and we know them well.

They occupy two important places in the Nyman family, too. If they disappeared tomorrow, the void would be significant. It’s taken only one year for Evelyn and Thomas to make a major mark on our whole family, and that’s because God is involved.

He’s designed every person who ever lived to be a unique, one-of-a-kind individual, never tiring of the creative process, never running out of ideas. Evelyn and Thomas are not repeats, and for all eternity they’ll each have the God-given soul and distinctive personhood they have today. I find that intriguing and thrilling, a triumph of divine design.

Katy and Hans have worked thousands of hours to bring their twins to this first birthday celebration, and I’ve had the chance to watch some of that exhausting diligence up close. But I know they’d both nod with enthusiastic approval if asked whether or not it was worth it.