Future Perfect

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. – Jeremiah 29:11

One of the things I miss when I am not at home is my own coffee.  I’m not sure why this is.  When I’m not traveling, I don’t mind at all getting a few cups of “foreign” coffee with breakfast at Aunt Martha’s or some other restaurant.  My daughter makes a good, strong cup of coffee about like what I brew.  In her case she is hampered by chlorinated or flavorless filtered water.   I’m probably just old and set in my ways.  The first thing I did after a weekend away moving furniture was make myself a modest pot of my own coffee. 

My daughter is moving to a larger, nicer place for which she is being offered a lease with an option to buy after a couple of years.  The house is old, built in the ‘60s.  It’s a little ramshackle, a little run down but still solid and settled.  It reminds me a little of an older fellow I know quite well who can now get a senior citizen discount without asking or flashing his ID.  No “Just For Men” for me. 

It is quite a change for my daughter who has gone through a tremendous transition in the last four years.   She has climbed out of the pit of addiction, found a new job and created a new, hopeful life for herself and her two children.  My complaining joints, especially my poor old, abused right knee, cannot drown out the happy song I hear in her voice.  It sounds like a polka.  Must be from her German ancestors on my wife’s side. 

I can hardly imagine much more of a turnaround from utter hopelessness with the loss of everything important to her to having a future and a hope.  Without some of that hope myself I’m not sure I would have made it through three consecutive weekends of physical effort, dozens of trips up and down stairs, carrying box after box, loading and unloading appliances and furniture, not to mention painting and papering walls and cleaning, always working against time to meet the deadlines.  We also had the record heat to deal with and not much in the way of accommodations. 

God, though, has been in it.  He worked all of the ends out, carefully and beautifully knitting everything together.  In spite of disobedience on the part of some involved, despite my short fuse and cantankerous attitude, God put it all together for us because He is Good.  He knows my daughter’s heart and my granddaughter’s heart. 

There are the old tales that tell of the Fair Folk stealing abused children from cruel and neglectful and unworthy parents.  But where do such little ones go if not to mothers and fathers that are more worthy of them – or perhaps to those who are in need of being made worthy?  Ah, me, indeed.   

Lacking patience or wisdom or any other good attribute that might make me deserving of such wonderful children and grandchildren, I can only love them and try to rise to the level of my blessing, to be whole for them, to be made whole by them.  I say, every once in a while, that everything I know, I learned from my oldest granddaughter.  And it is true -- everything worth knowing.