Justin and I spent a whole day on the family picture slideshow, digging up crinkly photographs and dust bunnies as we attempted to piece together my grandmother's eighty years of life. But she's more than the smile behind the pictures - her birthday celebration was testament to that. Her friends come from all walks of life, and the ninety-two people who showed up that evening was barely the tip of the iceberg.
If she invited all of them, we would probably need a stadium. Friends and relatives speak about her friendly, unassuming and outgoing nature, her children recount her being a devoted mother and a wife the perfect helper to her husband, her grandchildren remembering her love and affection. But in every single speech that was made, one thing stood out that everyone knew made her the woman she is today - and that was her faithfulness in her God.
Mama's faithfulness was mentioned no less than a hundred times that evening, she being a prayer warrior for everyone she came into contact with, how she woke up at 3am each morning to pray and read her Bible, the times when she would pray with her children and grandchildren before they left for school each morning, the countless occasions she would read the Bible to her grandchildren till they roused from slumber, the quiet hand behind her husband when he planted seeds in two churches, the still strength who started the Ladies' Group in these churches to serve alongside her husband, her continued prayers for all her family members and her desire to see footprints of the next generation walk closely in the Lord.
I never knew how amazing a woman she was until that night. For the first time in the twenty-two years that I've known her, I called her my hero. I truly admired the strength she had in God's plan in every aspect of her life - maybe it's because faith is something I grapple with constantly, and there stands a woman so close to my heart, filled with faith in her Father even though her husband's sudden departure left her a widow at slightly over fifty.
Two generations later, and I like giving myself excuses that the world wasn't as simple as it was then. Maybe it was because she was less educated, less exposed to the world around her and she grew up in her small hometown by the beach and marriage took place within people her community. But those are just excuses. That woman of faith will be built up through prayer despite seeing the world through the stubborn eye of ineffectuality.
