February 1, 2010

• Words…Some More

  One of my favorite book series ever has a quote in it that says “Wisdom is nine parts silence and one part brevity.”  For a ‘talker’, that’s quite the wisdom to swallow…and yet, I’ve found it to be sooooo true.  While I was running today, that quote (and recent events) took me back to one of my treasured memories and times where I have thanked God a million times over that He shut my mouth.

  The last time I saw my Grandma Yardlay on this earth, I stopped by their house in July of 2006.  If I recall correctly, I had been out at Meijers that morning and decided to swing by their place for just a few minutes on my way home.  Grandpa was out mowing the yard and Grandma was making sure he kept mowing the yard.   He stopped once to change into shorts and stopped another time to get a drink, but he kept at it, and she kept busy outside to give him incentive to keep at it.

  I wasn’t planning to be at their house long…I had things I needed to take care of at home–you know, things.  Things that schoolteachers need to take care of in the middle of a July day.  While we were sitting, chatting on her swing, she reached over with the sunscreen that she had just squirted into her hands, slapped her hands on my thighs and proceeded to slather it all over my legs.  I was mad.  I did not want sunscreen on my legs.  I was only going to be at her house for fifteen minutes, twenty at most, and I needed some sun on my legs and that was the perfect length of time to give them some sun, but to keep them from burning and I was wearing the perfect shorts to keep me from having a bad tan line.  I was not a happy camper.

  For some reason (for which I will be eternally grateful) God kept my mouth shut.  I still remember some of my thought processes of that moment: of irritation, definitively; of wanting to tell her to stop, but feeling the pointlessness of that, as my legs were already covered and anything other than a smooth, even spreading of the sunscreen would result in abject blotchiness; of finally resigning myself to realizing that since there was nothing left to do, I may as well keep my mouth shut and be thankful that I had a Grandma, even if she did drive me nuts slapping sunscreen on my undesiring-of-sunscreen legs.  And so I did.

  And the conversation went on without missing a beat (I think she was mid-sentence on something entirely different when she put the sunscreen on).  And she went on to tell me that she had a crazy idea to go surprise David, Kristin, Jack and new baby Maxwell when Mom and Dad went to Minnesota to visit them.  And we talked for fifteen minutes, and then twenty, and then forty-five, and then well over an hour, while Grandpa finished mowing the yard and we then moved off of the swing and on over to her flowers and her vegetables and drank iced tea and chatted.  And by the time I left, I was glad that I *hadn’t* said anything about her putting the sunscreen on my legs, because they would have been burnt to a crisp, after an hour and a half in the sun.  And I had really enjoyed seeing her and Grandpa and I was glad that I stopped, and also glad I’d stayed longer than I’d intended to stay.

  And then she and Mom and Dad and Grandpa took off for Minnesota and surprised David, Kristin, Jack and Max.  And Julia, Walter and I took off for the trip of a lifetime to Arkansas.  And Grandma went Home with Jesus on the last night of our stay in Arkansas on the 31st.  And I have been forever grateful to God that He granted me wisdom that on that day was nine parts silence and one part love, that kept me from marring the last earthly time I got to spend with Grandma and Grandpa.

  I can think of many times that I’ve regretted what I said.  Aside from times that I wish I would have shared the Gospel with people, I can think of few, if any times that I’ve regretted keeping quiet.  I can think of many, many things for which I’m thankful about my Grandma Yardlay.  Thanks be to God for continuing to work in the hearts and mouths of His children!

  “When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.” ~Proverbs 19:10
  
  

  • 10:19 pm
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