God is good

I just spent the best 12 minutes and 45 seconds of my day talking on the phone to my Grandma who lives in NJ. My Grandma is 84 years old and still works 4 days a week helping "clean" for a wealthy NJ family. Mind you, she doesn't clean anymore- they have a cleaning service that comes in. She answers the phone, gets the mail, changes the sheets several times a week, does their laundry, empties the dishwasher... all of those mundane tasks that all of us find our days filled with. Must be nice to have someone do those things for you! :) On the other hand, I kind of like doing those kind of things. Anyways, every once in awhile, I get a surprise call from Grandma. It's usually at 7am on my birthday when I hear a "HAPPY BIRTHDAY YEN" on the other side of the line (the yen comes from her fun Dutch accent). Let's also add in here that the 7am was not so much appreciated before Kaden, but now I'm up anyway, so I enjoy the early morning greeting!

Today Grandma called to thank me for sending her Kaden's 2 yr. pics. She just adores this kid, and I feel so many emotions when I talk to Grandma. I feel so joyful and happy because I have so much love for this woman. She makes me laugh with her little quirks, she makes me feel warm when she encourages me, and mostly I feel sad when I'm done talking to her because I miss her terribly. I've always had such a close relationship with my Grandma VDH, and I know that she won't be around forever. Strangely, I can almost predict what our conversation will be like. "Hi Yen! How's Andy? How's his job? How's Trudy? How's Kaden? He's getting so big! How's Steve and his girlfriend? Are you keeping busy? You have such a wonderful family! I miss your Grandpa so much, but I had so many wonderful years with him and I'm blessed, and I get up everyday and think it's a new day!"

That's pretty typical for a conversation with Grandma....I forgot to add the 5-10 "Goodbyes" I hear at the end of the line when I say bye. While the conversations are predictable, I wouldn't change them for the world. I've found that God uses these conversations to tug at my heart a bit, and He uses her to encourage me. Today she kept saying that even though the economy is rough and we've gone through bad times, God is good. You know what, God is good. I'm blessed beyond words, I have a wonderful family, job, support, food, more clothes than I should, and a relationship with God. God is good, you're right Grandma!

Oh, and did I mention I'm flying to NJ by myself to surprise her for her 85th birthday in September? I'm SO excited! Shhh... don't tell her- it's a surprise! :)

Here are a few older pics with Grandma (April 2010):