Yesterday, she would have turned 82.
Just a month after her 80th birthday, she joined her parents and siblings in eternity worshiping the King. The last time I visited, the bathroom mirror still had a flowered slip of paper with her favorite verse written in her curly, slanted script, It is of the Lord‘s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23).
Due to a childhood accident, my grandma lived everyday with pain. She knew what it meant to depend each morning on the Lord’s mercies. She was a living testament that because of His mercy, we are not consumed.
At her funeral, I watched person after person stand beside her casket, wet-eyed and grateful. Young marrieds, elderly widowers, they told me what a special woman my grandma was (though, I already knew). Her faithful prayer had made a profound difference in the lives of many. She could have been consumed, but she grabbed onto his new morning mercies—just enough for each day. She poured into lives with notes, phone calls, visits, volunteering, smiles, hugs, and so many prayers.
Her memory compels me to cling to the promise of Lamentations 3:22, and refuse to behave as though I am consumed—consumed by sick babies, consumed by my people messing the house faster than I can clean, consumed by guilt, consumed by my own weaknesses, consumed by what culture claims is important—and rather grab His mercies and pour them into others. As we are entering Easter weekend, let us celebrate the incredible mercies our Father has lavished on us; Jesus was consumed, so we don’t have to be.
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