If you’ve ever posted a comment on Stuff Christians Like, then there’s something I need to tell you. Something I’ve never mentioned before. Something I didn’t know about until last Christmas.
What is it?
My Grandma is praying for you.
Not a blanket prayer. She’s not saying wide sweeping “please protect everyone who comments on Stuff Christians Like” prayers. She is praying individually, by name, for you.
She told me that last Christmas. She reads every single comment. The nice ones, the not nice ones, the short ones, the rambling ones. She also asked me about specific readers and mentioned that she’s always praying for them.
That is awesome to me. Someone in Germany can leave a comment on a satire blog and my Grandma in her 80s, in Charlotte, North Carolina, prays for them. Hooray for the Internet, but above all, hooray for Grandmothers who love Jesus.
In thinking about my Grandma, I realized there are a few consistencies that most Grandmas who love Jesus share:
1. She knows more Bible than you.
You might study a lot. You might read a lot. You might have long forsaken needing the table of contents in your Bible and have made the pages look like the inside of a bag of Skittles from your constant underlining. But you will not “out Bible” your grandmother. Don’t even try.
2. She’s humble.
When I told my Grandma I was going to write a post about her, she laughed. Then a few minutes later she said, “Please don’t write a post about me. Write it about your mom and dad. I’m so proud of them!” Grandmas who love Jesus possess a tremendous degree of humility.
3. She will call you out.
If you don’t share her same philosophy about number two, if you are not also gifted with humility and get up to some tomfoolery, expect your Grandma who loves Jesus to call you out. Every other member of your family, your cousins, your uncles, or aunts might look the other way if you act the fool, but Grandma loves you too much for that. I’ve never seen my Grandma pull out a little Grandmama like Larry Johnson back in the days of his Converse commercials. She’s too sweet for that, but I have friends who tell stories of Grandmas who pipe up at Thanksgiving and say what everyone in the room is thinking but are too chicken to actually bring up.
4. You better dress up when you go with her to church.
Again, my Grandma is as laid back and flexible as they come. She’s reading blog comments and talking about getting on Twitter after all. But traditionally speaking, if you don’t dress up when you go to God’s house with a Grandma who loves Jesus, you must be crazy. Don’t try to pull out a V-neck with some sort of bedazzled jeans with Grandma. Grandma ain’t going out like that on a Sunday.
5. She will blow your mind at Sunday lunch.
For the rest of my life, I will try to recreate the rolls my grandmother made at her house and I will fail. There’s just something undeniable about Sunday lunch at Grandma’s house that you can’t manufacture at your own house try as you might. The tea is sweeter, the gravy is thicker and the rolls, well the rolls, are like tiny bread pillows from heaven.
I hope you have a Grandma who loves Jesus. But if you don’t, please know my Grandma loves Jesus and she’s also crazy about you.
What’s your grandmother like?
