When I was a little girl, I had the incredible good fortune to live in the same house with my grandma, Annie Dee. Annie Dee was a funny old lady. She had no teeth, except for the ones she kept in a jar by her bedside. She lived back in the day when people didn't try to "save" their teeth, they just had them pulled and got dentures. But she didn't like the way her dentures fit, so she just kept them in a jar beside her bed for special occasions.
One of her favorite "special occasions" was putting those teeth in when we weren't expecting it, and scaring the b'geezus out of us by smiling all vampire-like and chasing us around the house! Like I said, she was a funny old lady. ( She used to also wet her pants every time she laughed . . . and man is she mad at me from Heaven right now!)
But in addition to being incredibly funny, she was oh so very wise. She had a lot of sayings that were really wasted on my youth, often totally over my head, or seemingly irrelevant. But as I grew older, I began to understand just how wise her sayings were. I'm sure none of them are even unique to her, but the fact that she said them, and the fact that they stuck with me all my life, make them "her sayings" in my mind.
A few of her favorites were
"Pretty is as pretty does."
"Good riddance to bad rubbish."
"A mouth full of that will make anyone sick."
"I guess we'll just have to wait and see what the Lord does with this one."
and my personal favorite
"Consider the source, Sister. Consider the source."
Consider the source means just that. Think about the person who is speaking over you. Is it someone you trust? Is it a friend? An adversary? A wise person? A fool? A person with a good reputation or someone of ill repute? How likely is this person to speak truth?
I find that whenever someone says something unkind about me, something without merit, it is easy to dismiss the words if I just "consider the source."
And yet, for some reason, when the enemy speaks over me, I find it fairly easy to let those words seep in.
Far. Too. Deep.
All that to say, the next time the enemy speaks over me, I will listen to my grandma and "Consider the source, Sister. Consider the source."
Showing posts with label Learning from Older Women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Learning from Older Women. Show all posts
What Is So Attractive?
My friend, Becky, said I should blog about what attracts women to quilting retreats? She said that mostly in answer to another post, but also a little bit to make fun of me. I like that about her. Her rapier wit.
But since I just returned from a quilting retreat, I will tell you what is attractive about it. I spent 3 nights and 4 days in the presence of women who are at many different stages of life, and whom have had many different life experiences. Of eleven women, I was the youngest, at age 47 (yes, that is my real age.) Two other women there were close to my age, in their early 50's. (ugh, "close to my age" and "in their early 50's" should not be synonymous). But the other 8 women were anywhere from 68 to 75 years old. Some were widows, who shared stories about the loves of their lives. Some are still very happily married to the husbands they married in their youth (and still having quite active sex lives . . . yes, we talked about that a little . . . I had questions, they had answers.) Some are having troubles in their marriages, but still content to make those marriages last a lifetime.
We talked of love, and loss, and joy, and pain. We shared favorite movies, and who we all thought were good looking actors, and what our favorite vacation spot was, and what we loved about our husbands and what drove us crazy about them.
We laughed so hard we cried, many many times (and for some of the really old ones, until they pee'd their pants.) We quite simply just enjoyed sharing our lives together. On the last morning, we all sat around in our pajamas, unencumbered by responsibility or bras, :) not wanting our time together to be over. And finally, we hugged, promised to see each other next year, prayed for one another, and amidst a great amount of tears, said goodbye.
All that to say, what ISN'T attractive about that?
But since I just returned from a quilting retreat, I will tell you what is attractive about it. I spent 3 nights and 4 days in the presence of women who are at many different stages of life, and whom have had many different life experiences. Of eleven women, I was the youngest, at age 47 (yes, that is my real age.) Two other women there were close to my age, in their early 50's. (ugh, "close to my age" and "in their early 50's" should not be synonymous). But the other 8 women were anywhere from 68 to 75 years old. Some were widows, who shared stories about the loves of their lives. Some are still very happily married to the husbands they married in their youth (and still having quite active sex lives . . . yes, we talked about that a little . . . I had questions, they had answers.) Some are having troubles in their marriages, but still content to make those marriages last a lifetime.
We talked of love, and loss, and joy, and pain. We shared favorite movies, and who we all thought were good looking actors, and what our favorite vacation spot was, and what we loved about our husbands and what drove us crazy about them.
We laughed so hard we cried, many many times (and for some of the really old ones, until they pee'd their pants.) We quite simply just enjoyed sharing our lives together. On the last morning, we all sat around in our pajamas, unencumbered by responsibility or bras, :) not wanting our time together to be over. And finally, we hugged, promised to see each other next year, prayed for one another, and amidst a great amount of tears, said goodbye.
All that to say, what ISN'T attractive about that?
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