In today’s Marriage Monday the reflection is on mentors…..
Someone to share the struggles and joys of marriage with. Someone who’s “been there, done that” and lived to tell the tale. Someone who can guide us through each marital season with grace and love…that is the question for reflection today…in Mentors….
Often those who mentor us most are those who speak through actions and not in words. For me the mentors came in the form of grandparents who passed so many unspoken lessons down to me. My grandma and grandpap LOVED each other….their marraige was an old fashioned one, one where traditional roles were observed and embraced….she cooked and kept house and he went off to work each day, in a wood mill….He adored her, and she admired the man he was…I am sure that life was not always easy, but they LOVED each other. They lived for each other.
Grandpap told me the story of how they met at a church carnival more than once and each time he told it, he had a gleam in his eye….that gleam seemed to get brighter as the years passed. They respected each other, and truly lived for each other. They were never consumed with the distractions in this life….Gram told me once, just before I was married, that everyday, before grandpap came home, she would “check herself” in the mirror, nothing fancy, but she would freshen her lipstick..she wanted to look “lovely” for him, a pretty site for him to behold when he came home from a long day at work….
They were simple people, truly simple people…but they held hands up until death separated them…they were best friends…It was something that I observed. They taught me and mentored me in their actions…the respectful way that they spoke to each other, helped each other, and respected each other was embedded in my mind…It became what I sought out.
They passed on a blessing….the blessing in a marriage rooted in faith and love…one in which 2 were joined together for life…. when death separated them, gram was incomplete for a few years…wishing only to be with him….when she “went home,” I know that the reunion was magnificent…I know that she did not need lipstick when she met him again in heaven, but I know she was “glowing!”
I am not sure that they would have seen themselves as mentors….but they were, oh they were…they were mentors to a girl who was watching from the sidelines….observing what marriage was supposed to look like in God’s eyes….It was beautiful to watch, a blessing to try to emulate. the unspoken mentor….sometimes the most inspiring of all….
thank you gram and grandpap….your legacy lives on, it was beautiful on earth, I can only imagine it in the Kingdom of God…..I know you are holding hands…….for an eternity…I can not imagine anything more beautiful than that….thank you….
