Okay, so this post doesn't really have anything to do with waiting, but I'm going to include stuff about my daily life anyway.

I got a job this summer in a little town in rural Oklahoma. It's about 25 minutes from where I live. Well, my great-grandma and a few of my other relatives live in this town. I've been living with my great-grandma while I've been working. I go to church with my family on Sundays though. Well, when I first began living with her, it was difficult. I mean I'm 17, she's 96, there's quite a bit of an age difference there. I love her to death, but it was really hard. I started asking God to teach me why he had allowed me to be with her. So the last couple of days that I've been with her, it's been a little easier.

Then, I got home from work yesterday, and God really revealed why I am down here. She is 96 years old, and she has 96 years of stories and memories built up inside of her. She told me so many stories last night that cracked me up.

She told me of the time when her grandfather and she were going to go on a picnic one day around brunch time. Well, it started to rain. Her grandpa said, "An early morning rain is like an old woman dancing. She'll soon give out." She said her grandpa was always saying something funny like that.

Then she told me that her younger brother, Dorin, use to like to send her funny postcards that would embarrass her. He sent her a postcard one time that showed a little boy getting in trouble for tipping over the out house. His dad was the one that was getting on to him. The little boy said, "Abraham Lincoln's son didn't get in trouble for tipping over the out house." The dad said, "Yes, but Abraham Lincoln wasn't in the out house either." I laughed so hard at that.
She also told me about the postcard that Dorin sent her that showed a man standing with a long line of kids behind him, as far as the eye can see. The postcard said something like, "I wonder what he's doing when he's not fishing?" I laughed pretty hard at that one too.

I knew that my great-grandma had a lot of brothers and sisters, but I didn't know she had 6. I memorized the order. Homer, Minny, Peril, Rilla(that's my grandma), Pat(short for Cleopatra, cool huh?), Dorin, and Palmer. Palmer is the only other sibling of my g-grandma's who is still alive. She likes to call him in the evening at seven. They talk for a little while. She really likes it.

She told me of the time when she was growing up when they had a whole bunch of telephones on the same phone line. At the time, her dad was in the hospital. Well, her mom couldn't be there with him because she had all the kids to look after. But the nurse told the mom that she would call her if anything came up. Well, with the telephone thing, the more receivers that were off the hook, the harder it was for someone to hear a phone call. One night the nurse called, and the mom was having a hard time hearing her. She told the nurse that, and all of the sudden they heard a voice on the line. It was one of the neighbors. He said, "Well, if all these damn neighbors would hang up the phone, you might be able to hear." I laughed because my g-grandma said that word and because it was so funny.

She told me of the time her dad had planted a new tree. Well, my g-grandma and one of her sisters were out playing one day when one of their indian friends came to play. My gg (shorter than great-grandma) told her indian friend about the new tree. Well, most indians have superstitions and so did this one. She told my gg that once that tree grew big enough to shade her daddy's grave, her daddy would die. Well, naturally, that scared my gg. She and her sister wiggled the roots of that tree around, and later it died. She told her dad that later when she was grown up. He laughed and said he wondered why that tree died.

She also told me of the time her dad took her sister Pat to town to get her a pair of red shoes. Pat was so proud of her red shoes. When they got home, some family friends were over at their house. There was a little boy in this family who was around the girls' age. They were younger than ten, I think. Anyway, when the family was getting ready to leave, the little boy cried that he didn't want to leave his red shoes. Their dad pulled Pat aside and told her if she gave her shoes to the little boy, he would take her to town and get her another pair. So she gave her shoes to the little boy, and her dad was true to his word. My gg told me that the little boy died two weeks later, of the cause she forgot. But at least he got his red shoes.

She told me that her kitchen table was her late husband's mom's table. She told me that the table had fed indians and a ton of other people. I asked her about the indians. She told me that if they saw someone walking down the street back then they'd ask them if they had dinner, and if they hadn't they invited them to dinner, whether they knew them or not. You don't see that very often these days.

I also like staying with her because in the mornings I get to walk down her lane. It's good for walking, but it's good for thinking too. There are so many things I think of when I walk. I have my prayer time when I walk. I think I want to write someday, and I think of stories when I walk. If anyone were watching me from a distance they might think I'm crazy sometimes because I have conversations between the different characters of my books out loud. But the glory of it is that no one hears me except God. The country is beautiful.

I miss home, but I know that I'm being blessed by getting to stay with my gg. She's losing her hearing, her sight, and her memory, but I think God is allowing her to recall those things that happened so long ago. I'm finally discovering my blessing that was in disguise, but not anymore.