God, the Grandmas, and the Girls

One of my most faithful blog readers doesn’t even have a computer.  My maternal grandmother has a printed copy of every blog post I’ve written stored in a three-ring binder on the shelf in her living room.  Each Friday, my sister faithfully prints out posts by she, me, and Grandma’s other grandchildren and sticks them in an envelope, affixes a stamp, and sends them on their way to Papa and Grandma.  (I don’t have a printer, which is a good excuse for asking my little sister to do it!)  On Monday or Tuesday, Grandma walks to the mailbox, and forsakes everything she was or should be doing, to read through the stack of blog posts from the previous week.  Rather “old news” in the blogosphere by then, but fresh and new and much enjoyed by her.

The first dark blue notebook is another cousin’s updates about life now lived far away from the grandparents.  The brown one (“nearly full” notes the photographer, my sister) has the blog posts from yours truly.  The yellow notebook has e-mails from my cousin Abbie when she was traveling in Alaska and Africa.  The green binder contains the details upon which my sister is “Harping Upon.”  The pink one holds blogged letters to the baby girls of this Pink House.  The maroon notebook contains more updates from Africa, via my cousin Jennifer (not Grandma’s own granddaughter, but one she prays for nonetheless!).

And the last on the shelf?  The red binder holds Papa and Grandma’s Christmas Letters, written throughout their 56 years (and counting!) of marriage.  (Not that we grandchildren come by our love for writing naturally or anything.)

Whenever I get confused regarding what I should be blogging about, I just remember that row of notebooks.

My paternal grandparents have a computer—and the internet!  They might get the news a bit more quickly.  But I don’t think it could be measured who enjoys the stories of their great-grandchildren more.

Whenever I get flustered over my audience, I think of my grandmas—one sitting in front of the computer in an office decorated with antique children’s toys that my daddy and I both played with, the other walking down the oak-bordered driveway to the mailbox beside the corral and barn on the ranch where my mom was raised.

My own mother uses Outlook’s RSS feed reader to keep up on the blog posts of the daughter who still lives in her home as well as the daughter many miles away.  Mom recorded stories of her children’s sayings and doings in a journal (including the details of when we trusted Christ as our Savior).  I grew up listening to those stories being re-told, nearly memorizing some of them word for word when I could read the journal on my own.  (And if they were published for the world to see, it would be obvious that I have daughters who take a bit much after their mother…)

Whenever I hesitate to write yet another post with silly stories of my girls, I remember Mom’s little journal covered in teddy bears and filled with the embarrassing tales that each prospective member of the family has been subjected to.

On my own bookshelf is a slim report cover filled with the blog posts I wrote on ylcf.org after Merritt’s accident and throughout his recovery, and all the e-mails from people who were praying for Merritt and me.  My mom compiled and printed them out, titling the folder “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” (the hymn that was sung at our wedding).

Whenever I pause before recording a more personal aspect of our journey, I remember the notebooks of memorial stones to God’s faithfulness.

I have only to think about why I write to be sure that writing is not a waste of time.

I have only to remember for whom (and Whom) I write: for God’s glory, for the grandmas’ enjoyment, and for the girls’ posterity.

It’s “From: The Little Pink House”…as recorded for God, the Grandmas, and the Girls.

The writer must know for whom he writes, why he writes, and if his writing means what he means for it to say.

-Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, by Charles J. Shields
via Heather Ivester

P.S. May I ask you to pray for us here at the Little Pink House and those in the surrounding area today?  There’s a hot wind and a fire in the hills above us, and many of our neighbors are being evacuated…  Thank you!  I’ll try to post updates to Twitter while we still have internet.