Lent: Proverbs 16:31

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Blessing #22 - Grandma

Grandma and me at my senior recital in 2011

I spent the better part of yesterday thinking about how much I wanted my grandmother's advice.  Originally, I decided to take the issue to her, because I thought she would be the one most likely to tell me what I wanted to hear.  In the end, her advice turned out to be very different from what I expected, but I think that what she actually had to say was much better than what I was thinking she would say.  I'm really glad I called her.

We put so little value on the older generations these days.  Why is that?  How does that make any sense?  Sure, maybe the Internet doesn't come intuitively to many of their members, but since when does the ability to use the Internet count as anything that actually contributes to society?  If anything, the amount of time we spend on the Internet is breaking down society.   Maybe it's because Grandma was always the one sneaking me chocolate pudding just before dinner, but I know I had a hard time thinking of her as an outlet to contribute to my "adult-size-problems" - you know... those problems that are bigger than being able to get past the water temple in Zelda (The one for NES of course... and yes, Grandma DOES know how to solve that problem.  My Grandma is even cooler than Julian Smith's.)

Grandma heard me out; she listened to everything I had to say.  When I talked myself out, she immediately said, "Anne, you need to be remembering to pray about this.  Just keep taking it to G-d."  Then she made some observations, upon which I expanded more.  She closed by saying some things to me that I never expected to hear from her.  They certainly weren't anything bad - they were things that were very reassuring to hear - they were just unexpected.  It just goes to show that if you value someone's opinion on things that you're doing in your life, you should probably be transparent with them about why you're doing those things.

When was the last time you sought advice from someone who had successfully lived through any problem you could bring to them?