March 2013
The Well Coffeehouse, Nashville, Tennessee
I miss my grandmother, Ruth. I grew up with her acting like my second mother, as she and my grandfather lived across the driveway from us. I saw them every day. I thought my grandmother was sweet, and I knew she loved me way more than I deserved. She was gutsy and funny and always wanted to walk on the beach when we were vacationing and absolutely loved to hang out with me and my sisters. She was educated and employed. She was a great cook and a voracious reader. She also saw more than her fair share of heartbreak and troubles.
And man, was she determined. She would tell us stories of her meager upbringing in the cotton fields of middle Georgia — how she would work in the fields with her siblings and how their family canned vegetables from the garden. Her first husband left her — literally just left one day — and so she became a single divorced woman in the 1940s. Her subsequent marriage to my grandfather, a widower, caused much clacking around town and left her an outcast. Ma, as we called her, was a librarian at the local high school, Sprayberry High School, and she taught us how to care for books that were not our own.
During my first summer after starting college, my mother, grandmother, great-aunt, and I went on a trip to Savannah, Georgia. We stayed in a bed-and-breakfast and toured around the town. One night, as we were sitting in the library area with other people staying at the bed-and-breakfast, a gentleman from the northern part of the United States asked me about school. I explained that I had just finished my first year at the University of Georgia. He said, “Oh, are you the first educated member of the family?”
My naive self thought he meant the first of the girls in my nuclear family, so I said yes, being that I am the oldest sister.
Ma quickly, and with passion, said, “No sir, she is not. I have my master’s degree from the University of Georgia, and her mother has a law degree.” Apparently he thought we were country folk who had just learned to read and that I was the first to ever attend a higher education facility — and my grandmother would not stand for that.
She loved us and God just as fiercely as she defended her education and family. I knew my grandmother for twenty-nine years, and as best as I can remember, she was always studying the Bible or praying. She kept lists on a notepad of everyone she was praying for. She sent me letters when I was at camp and at college, letting me know she was praying for me and what she was praying about. She took intense Bible study classes that required a lot of study and effort. And she loved it.
In 2001, while I was on a mission trip to Kentucky, my grandmother had a stroke. She lived, though never the same again, for eight more years. As I watched her for those years, she always felt like a survivor to me. As I heard more stories of what her life was like from her and my grandfather and her siblings and my mom, I began to see a fuller portrait of the kind of woman she was, the things she went through, the sacrifices she made. So it surprised me when she died. I guess I thought she was too strong to die.
She would say in her last days that God kept her on earth to pray for us — her children and grandchildren. That she felt her purpose on this planet was to cover us, intercede for us, and ask God to direct us. That’s brave to me.
I don’t think you have to be in the prime of your life to be brave. Though a recent college graduate has definite advantages over a mom or grandmother or high schooler when it comes to “I want to pack up my life and do something crazy,” I don’t think courage is limited like that.
Ma was courageous in choosing to live when her body didn’t have much life to offer, and she was eighty-nine years old before she took her last breath.
And I see twentysomethings stepping into jobs and opportunities that aren’t easy and require bravery.
As a kid, one of my favorite things to listen to was G.T. and the Halo Express. Each tape featured a story of kids visited by angels, and those angels, led by G.T., would help the children solve life issues. (I’m sure this in no way led me to constantly think I saw angels as a child.) During the cassette capers, the children in the stories would learn Bible verses in song form. This has come in quite handy for me as an adult because I can still recite Scriptures and sing them to those very tunes. And I think of the song for Deuteronomy 7:9. I’ll sing it for you.
Know therefore that the Lord your God is God.
He is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love,
Keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations,
To a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.
Fictional angels taught me that song, but the Scripture is true. It doesn’t matter what your age is, if you love God and keep his commands, you are starting something for a thousand generations. And probably you are on the receiving end of that as well. I know I certainly am because of Ma and others who came before her.
Because my first few books were written to teen girls, I get lots of emails from teen girls. As you can imagine. Bless them. And so many of their letters amaze me — the things they are willing to do and say for the sake of the gospel. One girl told me she talked about Jesus openly for the first time at her lunch table, and then two girls asked her about Jesus later.
I don’t know how long ago you were in high school, but surely you can remember the kind of courage that takes. The risk. The potential social implications. It’s all still real and, dare I say, worse for students today.
I think it is brave to join a sorority at a major university and desire to live a life that honors God.
I think it is brave to be an elementary school student and tell your friend that you are praying for his sick dad.
I think it is brave to graduate from college and take a job in a big city where you don’t know anyone.
I think it is brave to be a mom.
I think it is brave to move to China and smuggle Bibles to the underground church.
I think it is brave to return to work after years away.
I think it is brave to give up your child for adoption because you realize that raising a kid as a single sixteen-year-old mother isn’t the best life he could have.
I don’t know how old you are. But I know the lie you hear. You are too young. You are too old. You don’t know enough, or you know too much. The truth is that courage doesn’t have an expiration date. Courage doesn’t have a marker that says, “You must be taller than THIS to ride this ride.”
You were meant to be brave. Your map is yours from day one. Of course, a fifth grader isn’t going to be ready to move alone to Africa, but she may be ready for a mission trip. God plants dreams in our hearts early. He hands us talents far before we know exactly how to use them. And the young ones? They aren’t afraid to think about those talents, to push into whatever that dream is, to be brave naturally.
I have friends who are sure that life has passed them by — that their opportunity to be brave has come and gone. That is sadder to me than anything — you are not too old! My grandmother was brave until her final breath at the age of eighty-nine. And my mom is like her. Not too many years ago, my mom had to stand up for truth in front of a crowd of people who mattered greatly to her but disagreed with her. Some were older — friends of my grandparents — and many were her peers. It was very painful to watch her go through it, but it was impactful on me. She stood up for truth and righteousness when people she loved and respected wouldn’t.
And her daughters saw it all.
Remember. Courage is for every age.