A NEW GRANDSON...SPIRITUALLY

I ain't a mall hanging-out person, usually.  However, when in Tacoma, about 3 weeks ago, staying with a friend from Omaha who hadn't known I was raised in that town [I blogged about that a couple weeks ago when I had came home] and she was a wonderful nursing teacher for a couple months and had a wonderful apartment arranged by the business out there. 

Lisa and I at my sister's; Lisa heading to Sea-Tac

The apartment was near the Tacoma Mall.  I wanted to walk around and about, getting some exercise, so strolled over about noon.  That happened for three days.  During that time, I met a few new friends and that truly was a real treat. I bought one thing from a really special seller, Natalie. And I'll be wearing those purplely leggy things for a very long time.  

The last day, Thursday, I sat for what I assumed would be a few minutes.  Well, it became more than an hour.  There were two twenty-ish aged people.  They had become Mall friends very recently.  The guy, Aaron, and I talked quite a bit re: where he had lived previously [Pennsylvania and Texas, but born in Tacoma], what his working and college situations were that were challenging him, and we talked about the Lord.  The gal, Brittany, had gone to lunch with a friend, and she returned before I left, so I've had her email and phone number.  I was very, very pleased.

One of the amazing pieces is that, on Friday, when my friend was leaving Tacoma and returning to Omaha, I ended up at a cousins apartment, a significant distance from where I had been staying near the Mall.  And this apartment was very small and only about 1/2 mile from where Aaron lived.

On Friday and Saturday, he called me about going to his church.  I knew, as he described it, that it would be in the general area I had lived in and traveled through for years and years and years.  But I didn't recognize the church's name.

That Sunday I was picked up by Aaron and his driver.  A mile-ish away, when they pulled up to the church, I was overwhelmed.  My mother's church when she was about 20 years old, back in 1940.  I'd seen it many, many times, but had never gone in.  

To be in it on that Sunday, it was amazing.  It had been a Baptist Church for many years, but now was a non-denominational church and filled with worship and worship and more worship.  And, that day, sharing many of the summer missions situations around and about our world.  And wonderful healing and helpful prayers in the middle time and at the end time.  I was prayed over more than once!  And I prayed for another near me.

Just heading out from church

Aaron and I sat together and had a wonderful time.  Then we walked about a mile to have lunch right under the apartment of my cousin's. After about an hour of just eating and talking and encouraging, when we finished, we hugged and he walked his way and I went up to the apartment. I returned to Omaha the next day, hitting the planes.

The important everydayness of this situation is that now I have a "grandson".  Aaron, when he calls or emails, he has consistently called me "grandma".  

What a blessing to go to the Mall.  I was walking around and about in that very large place, seeing many, many people.  Suddenly meeting three.  A blessing, a special one, is that I  have a spiritually-focused grandson and now I am "officially" being his grandma.

Yes, a blessing.