Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Divide and Conquer

One of the hardest parts of being faraway from our grandchildren and married children is that we can't always be there to help out when life is difficult.

The past two weeks have been overwhelmingly difficult for our daughter who has four of our little people, ages 18 months to 8 years. Her husband was going away on business for almost two weeks, and we knew it was going to be a stretch for her. We were already committed to being in TN to await the birth of our son's 4th child, our 8th little person, so we couldn't help. At least we didn't think we could.

The day before her husband was to leave, our daughter called to tell us they had a flea infestation. She was overwhelmed to say the least. We decided to leave two days early and stop by her house and help with the burdensome task of spraying and cleaning everything--several times. It took all three of us many hours, but we managed to get the job done and the fleas were gone.

The next day we headed for TN. And we're still here, at least I am. Tom had business in SC already planned in the middle of our three week stay here. But what he didn't plan on was making a stop back at our daughter's home to help comfort her children who were missing their daddy BIG time. Just having a man in the house comforted them in a way our daughter couldn't. When Tom sent me this picture of our 8 year old granddaughter cuddled up and sleeping on his shoulder I knew we had made the right decision by dividing and conquering.



Being at a distance from each other physically doesn't mean we care any less. And gratefully we are often able to go the distance to meet a need or fix a meal. We count it a privilege to love and serve our kids physically when we can. But when we can't our prayers are ever ready to appeal to our Heavenly Father to provide the hands to help and the heart to care through others who live close by.

As I sit in our little cottage waiting for a middle of the night call telling me, "It's time!" I am grateful just to be here, to be called Nana by seven, soon-to-be eight little people, and that "Faraway" doesn't mean I love and care for my little people any less. I'm a here-to-stay Nana at least in my heart.

Until next time...