Those who are friends with me on social media already know this, but let me elaborate to those of you who are my Cozy Little Kitchen friends. This is something you might want to grab a warm drink or an iced tea or coffee, because this is about my very personal life.
John 16:33 I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
As Jesus states in this verse, problems in life are inevitable. Trials will absolutely come, because we do live in a fallen world, but we can obtain peace through Him! Sometimes, the insurmountable trials we face will actually be used for the glory of God.
This year has been hard for me from the very start of it. I won’t elaborate on it all right now, and I don’t feel like I have to, because so many of the things are what most of us face in our life. The difference is there’s just been a lot of challenges happening at once.
I have come up for air thanks to all the prayers and fasting of so many of my closest loved ones in my life!! I have had to reach out more than ever before these last 6 months in a plea for prayers over me and my family, and the Lord is answering!!!
Despite the chaos that the last several months have brought, there’s nothing as heavy as what’s happened this summer. Heath and I have had to say “goodbye” or “see you later” to two of our grandparents in June. Our family buried them a week apart.
I have never lost a grandparent. I say that with a heart of gratitude to have had all of my grandparents for over 37 years, but to say goodbye in exactly one week’s time to two of the best people I know was very hard on our families.
When Jesus tells us in that scripture that trials will come, He doesn’t end it there, instead He gives us great hope!! He says “but take heart! I have overcome the world!”.
That means for us in Christ, death has lost its sting!!!
Because of what Jesus did on the cross of Calvary, His death and burial and resurrection means that we as disciples of Christ have eternal salvation — we go from life into life!
I have the blessed assurance that Nana and Grandpapa are indeed in Heaven in the arms of Jesus! They are with their parents and grandparents again! Nana has been reunited with her brother who died when they were children of a sudden illness. Grandpapa is with his brother who suddenly passed after a surgery several years ago. They are with our daughter Bailey Faith whom I’ve never met, but now they have! I know that I know they have sat her on their lap and Nana has probably sang to her. Grandpapa has probably found some wildflowers and make her a flower necklace to wear—just like he did for Kylie the very first day he met our oldest children. I’ll never forget how much that moved me to watch his aged hands pick the flowers and create a lovely necklace to place around her. That touched me so much!
Jesus has overcome the world by overcoming death on a cross, and His victory is our our victory!!!
I would like to introduce our grandparents that have graduated to Heaven to you and honor them in this space. Nana, was my husband’s mom’s mom and Grandpapa, my mom’s daddy.
Here is Betty Morgan, our Nana! Here she is a couple Thanksgivings ago with Pa, the love of her life, being married almost 70 years.
Nana and Pa had a marriage to admire. They are beloved by all who know them! Pa stayed right beside her in her final weeks and days and even hours, until the very end. In fact, he was at her bedside when she left this world. Though he hobbles around himself, he has been the one to cook for her and provide it all the last couple of years since her health has been in serious decline. The last few months she rapidly got worse, but we are never truly ready to say goodbye to our favorite people, are we??
Nana exuded Jesus in her demeanor. As you can see here, she carried a warm light in her beautiful blue eyes that twinkled to make whoever she was with feel so very loved! Speaking of beautiful, she had the prettiest roses I’ve ever seen! She had a rose garden with different varieties and a couple different climbing roses that she carefully tended to so well. These weren’t stuffy gardens, but the kind that drew you in around her country home. She would bring me bouquets from time to time with all the colors in the rainbow, that smelled so fragrant and sweet!
I will always remember how put-together and elegant she always looked, seemingly without even trying! Her skin so pretty and she always wore a nice coral shade of lipstick and nail polish on her arthritic fingers. I don’t remember her without nail polish on her fingers and toes. She wore color so well and loved wearing florals, too. I always said how I wanted to be like Nana when I grow up in the graceful manner and in the youthfulness she naturally exude! She was not even 5 feet tall, and yet she always filled the room with her sunny disposition and endearing heart for her loved ones.
She was the best in the kitchen and taught me so much about how to bake! For many years, my favorite place to be was beside Nana in her kitchen and I have spent many times there over the course of being in their family over the last 20 years! She’s passed down to me her our favorite recipes like
Nana’s Apple Pie,
Lemon Meringue Pie,
Derby Pie, and Strawberry Cake. She was known in our family for her famous fried chicken dinners, where she would invite us over and serve us her homemade fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, mashed potatoes, garden corn, and Lima beans. Always serving a delectable dessert or two with coffee afterward! I looked forward to that meal more than any restaurant. It wasn’t just about the food, but the way she made you feel when you sat at the table with her. She would always want you to get more food than a belly could handle and she loved telling stories of when she was younger or her kids were young.
Though she lived most of her married adult life on the same small country road, she lived a full life. She proves that the very best and meaningful lives don’t have to be the most elaborate ones! Her life revolved around her family and her church, and the legacy she left is a very honorable one. We all miss her so much! There will only be one “Nana”!!!
This is hard to write, because there really aren’t earthly words to describe my beloved Grandpapa, Gerald Lowell Walker.
I’m crying as I type this out.
I’ve been weepy lately.
Grandpapa and Granny. This picture below of them is just my favorite thing ever! If you can’t tell, they loved each other with such a deep love for over 6 decades. Granny was right beside him when he passed after she stayed there for weeks not wanting to miss a thing!
Grandpapa’s world was absolutely God and his family and his farm and everybody knew it. The Walker family is very close-knit and loving, and I attribute that to these two and the example they set for us all. Grandpapa loved the Lord and it was evident! He loved people and would tell them about what Jesus has done for him. He wasn’t a missionary, he didn’t go to Bible school or even have a degree. He did ministry the organic, grass-roots, first church kind of way and that is simply that Jesus just exuded out from everything he did!! His body may have been slowly slipping away this year, but his spirit was very strong! I just recently heard of how this past winter he literally gave a man he had just met the new coat off his back, because that man was cold and didn’t have a way to stay warm! That’s the kind of man I always knew him as, but he wasn’t always that way —here’s how the Lord turned a trial into something very good for His glory…
Grandpapa was a highly regarded certified welder for the pipeline, exactly like my dad is, and in fact he was the one who got my dad into welding in the first place! One of the very best, he worked on the “great Alaskan” pipeline in the ‘70s. Through his success in that job, he came back home and built his family a beautiful brick home. At this time, he wasn’t in church regularly and his life revolved around his work. In 1989 something happened where God got his attention. Tragically, his hand was blown off in an explosion on a job, and this required major surgery to repair and left him no choice but to retire from welding. If you don’t know, a good welder needs a steady hand like a surgeon. after that accident, his life was never the same! He would tell you how the Lord used that accident for His glory to turn his life around. Grandpapa saw the merciful hand of God in that accident, and his life became even more fruitful and blessed as he began walking everyday with the Lord. No doubt he would tell this story today if you asked him about it in Heaven!
Grandpapa and Granny built the beautiful country home, we know today, on their farm land just after the accident, and he began to go into full time farming! Farming is all I remember Grandpapa doing. He would always be getting on or off a tractor or coming back from the hill where his cattle was. He was a cowboy at heart, and just a handful of years ago he built a small, rustic cabin on his property in the woods for himself. He built it with his own two hands and with lots of love! He was so proud of that cabin, and it’s such a serene place for solitude and rest on their farm! That’s where these photos of him and Granny were taken that capture him so well. That cabin will always be cherished by our family—Always!
We had a family fish fry almost one month to the date before his passing. It was at their house, and he was there with most of my extended family doing what we do best which is cooking, eating and laughing and playing together at the farm. I am so so glad he planned this fish fry! Oh, my. Little did we all know it would be the last time we would all be together like that and it was the last time I had a conversation with him. The Lord was good to give us one last time together. The next time I was there, was the day he passed we met back at the farm with Granny. The family met to surround Granny with love. We are, the cried a lot, and to remembered the ver best about him as we processed and released him to Jesus. He was already with Jesus, but sometimes our hearts take a bit longer to release. I will miss him with all my heart!!
So exactly to the very hour, these two amazing souls crossed over into Glory just one week apart. We went from barely recovering from one good-bye to the next. But they have no more ailments or pain in Heaven! They have brand new bodies so the loss is strictly ours. We will miss them, but we will continue to honor the legacy they build their life on and we will water the seeds of faith they planted to all whom they met along the way! The torch is passed down and we will proudly take up the eternal cause our grandparents left behind.
This scratches the surface of them and their lives. I may write more in the future, but as you can imagine it takes an emotional toll to recollect it all.
I want to honor my mom for a moment and say thank you to her and her siblings for caring for him and Granny at the end. They are still caring for Granny as she’s back at their beloved farm.
Please pray for both my Granny and Heath’s Pa, especially as they mourn the love of their life and need the strength and resolve to move forward in the days ahead. They know and love the Lord so I know they’ll be alright, but I can’t imagine losing my favorite person in all the world.
I will be okay, and I am okay! The reflection of their beautiful lives have given me a perspective of truly appreciating and enjoying every single day—even the toughest ones. I am reminded that I am building a life that matters!!! What we do in our homes and in the lives around us everyday matters for generations to come and for eternity. It goes way beyond us, for this is Kingdom work!!
Thank you for the love and support you’ve shown and for allowing me to introduce you to two of the greatest people to grace the earth.
