Last week the other grandmother of my/our three British grands and I conducted our 4th annual “Team Gran” day together. We marveled at the progress of our shared little ones since we were last together with them, and delighted in their company for a day while enjoying a rich friendship with each other. The 4000 miles between our two homes always seem to melt away at these rare but meaningful get-togethers, and as co-grandmas we have no trouble picking up where we left off many months before.
So on Friday, Sarah (“Dandy”) and I (“Mee Mee”) left Mummy-Katy behind and piled into Sarah’s car for a day of frolicking with Nicholas, Evelyn, and Thomas. Our adventure was slightly complicated by a need to stay on task with toilet training the 2 year olds, but we managed 10 hours with only 2 accidents, not bad for a couple of women whose toilet training skills had rusted-out decades before.
The first stop on our adventure was the home of Sarah’s friend Alison, who lives in a charming 200 year old stone cottage surrounded by rolling hills, grazing sheep, a river, and a waterfall. We hiked through a lush pasture, stepping around sheep poo-poo, telling the children not to obsess about the piles, since they weren’t as bad as people-poo-poo.
But then, of course, we had to promptly deal with people-poo-poo, pursuing potty training every 15 minutes. Thomas and Evelyn knew no shame at our open-air stops and gladly would have told passers-by about their latest productions, had anyone asked.
Later at Dandy’s house, between moments of focus on bodily functions, she and I played with the children non-stop: storytelling and reading, cars and trucks, hide and seek, soldiers and dollies. We threw ourselves into it all, singing endless songs, serving and cleaning up meals, working through bath time, and then, much to our pleasure, ending up in Sarah’s back yard “Peace and Quiet Garden.”
At the end of the day, we concluded that playing is hard work!
But the Lord energized us to our undertaking, and isn’t that the way it always is? God presents something to us that he’d like us to do, and we often respond with objections, because we feel unprepared, unequipped, or unenthusiastic. But if we’re willing to cooperate with whatever he’s asked, we find that before we begin, he has somehow gotten us prepared, equipped, and excited.
So we plow ahead and do the best we can, and in God’s hands, that’s always good enough. As a matter of fact, even our meager efforts result in something extraordinary when placed in his able care.
Though our “Team Gran” day was jam-packed with action, we did end up in a place of “Peace and Quiet” …albeit with our potties. And a Team Gran day with “Dandy” turned out to be fine and dandy indeed.
“God… will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you.” (2 Corinthians 9:10)