Hannah Time!

"Cleaning and scrubbing can wait 'til tomorrow,

For babies grow up we have learned to our sorrow,

So quiet down cobwebs and dust go to sleep

For I'm rocking my baby for babies don't keep!"

Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

Dear Readers, there will be no more Give Away peeks until sometime next week. This weekend I will be putting in a little Hannah time. You may be wondering who is this Hannah and how does she and with whom does she spend her time. I am Hannah, this is my Grandmother name, and I will be spending time with gorgeous grandson this weekend! He is so adorable at 16 months old and he is coming for his first overnight visit to Hannah's house. His mommy and daddy are celebrating their 6th Wedding Anniversary and I get the baby!

I remember well the day we got the news that we were going to be grandparents, I was thrilled beyond measure. Let me rewind a little bit here. Previously my daughter-in-love and number one son came over to talk to us. Unbeknown to us they had been trying to conceive for a year and there was a possibility that due to an illness and its treatment when daughter-in-love was very young that she may never be able to have a child or her chances may have been greatly reduced. Bewildered by this news we put matters in the only place you can put such matters and that was in the hands of the Creator. We began to pray as a family for a child.

Fast forward several months later, daughter-in-love is scheduled to try the fertility route, her appointment is set, and we anxiously await the outcome. She never made the appointment because there was no need to, our prayers were answered, we were having a baby! Her pregnancy and birth were both ideal.

Now when we found out this news I found out some bewildering news at the same time, you have to have Grandmother name! Did you know that it is all the rage to have a "designer" Grandmother name? Every single person I encountered asked two questions, "When is the baby due?" and "What will you be called?" I was just puzzled by this second question, didn't they just call you something when they could speak? I never really gave it much thought until then, in my family all the grandmothers were called "Granny + whatever their last name was" and that is how you kept them straight. Was this incorrect? Had I been doing it wrong all these years? Had I in some way done a great disservice to my beloved grandmothers by not giving them unique and designer names? I thought I'd better look into this matter.

Did you know that there are Oma's, Nonnie's, Nannie's, Nan's, Nana's, Gigi's, G'ma's, Tutu's, Granna's, Ya-Ya's, Mimi's, Nonna's, Mawmaw's, Grammie's, and Baba's out there? The list must be endless if you were to include foreign words for grandmother, the ones I just listed are from people I actually know, can you just imagine what must be out there? I was a little bewildered by it all and the closer the due date got the more pressured I was feeling to make a choice. Here were some of my top choices: teasingly I thought of "Grandsandy", doesn't that just sound like the matriarch of a family (must have been on a little power trip when I thought of that one). I am always doing silly stuff and refer to myself as a silly goose, so just having returned from a trip to Hawaii and seeing signs all over the place to watch out for the Nene, (goose or geese), I thought of "Mother Nene", (Mother Goose). Then I thought I might like "Mimi", sounded sweet and easy to say but discarded it because it was too close to mama. Here I hit a road block and began sweating bullets, this was about to be a tragedy in epic proportions, the baby was just going to look at me and never know who I was because the poor little dear would have no way to identify me!

Well, as babies have a tendency of doing, he came and I still had no name. Six months into the Grandmother journey and still I had no name ( I was beginning to feel like that old song about being a horse with no name wandering in the desert!). Well desperate times call for desperate measures, we made a list of names on slips of paper and put them in a pencil holder and let gorgeous grandson dip his little hand inside and clutch a slip and choose for himself. Problem was I let my daughter write out the names and I don't remember exactly what crazy version of Grandmother she picked but I decided that was not going be it!

So I decided to do what I should have done in the first place and pray and wait and let the name be revealed to me and it was, through my own writing in a journal entry I had made when gorgeous grandson was six weeks old. Divine inspiration there is nothing like it! I came across this entry as I was (still am) sifting through eleven years worth of writing trying to organize it in some manner when I read the following entry and it dawned on me in that moment who I was:

"Father, thank you for the time I got to spend with gorgeous grandson yesterday. Thank You for letting me be rewarded with joy at seeing his smile and for hearing him coo. Thank You that he is whole, healthy, and happy. Thank You for the way he feels in my arms or snuggled curled up sleeping with his little head resting on my shoulder, his soft baby breath brushing my cheek. I love hearing his tiny contented sighs.

As I held him yesterday I just felt such an urge to pray for him. I just held him, breathing in his sweet baby scent and exhaling praises and petitions to heaven for his character, his behavior, his soul, and his service to the kingdom of God. It was such a sweet and holy moment. It was as if we were in the very presence of God and angels. I prayed for health and protection, as well as divine correction in his life.

The sweet Holy Spirit and the heavenly hosts stood quite near us filling us with divine and wonderful love. I spoke blessings upon him and affirmed him with my love as well as telling him how precious he was to God. It was the best and most holy thing I could have done with my day. For this child I prayed. Thank You, Father, for the opportunity."

I was Hannah! I remembered the Scripture prayer that I continually prayed for my daughter-in-love to conceive, Hannah's prayer! Hannah was a woman who for years had desperately wanted a child, she felt tormented at seeing others with children. She petitioned the Lord to open her womb as she was becoming bitter and depressed over her inability to conceive. She wept and prayed and asked the Lord Almighty to look upon her misery and to remember her and to give her a son. She kept on praying, she prayed in her heart silently moving her lips admitting that she was a woman who was deeply troubled over her barrenness. She poured her soul out the the Lord, she prayed out her anguish and grief, and she walked away from the encounter no longer downcast. Hannah had surrendered her desire for a child into the only hands that could make a difference. I think in my heart that at that moment of surrender Hannah had come to terms with her condition and accepted whatever the outcome would be. We had to do the same in our family knowing the physical limitations and circumstances we may never have had a biological grandchild. Our results could have been very different and for many they are. My heart goes out to those who still struggle with infertility but I hope in some small way this story will offer a little hope or at least a path to peace for what we have no control over. Hannah made a choice when she walked away after petitioning the Lord, to be bitter or to be better. She chose to be better, Scripture says that when she walked away "her countenance was lifted." I pray those who may be struggling with this heart wrenching situation will choose "better" and be guarded from the poison of bitterness. May the Lord grant you your petition or at the very least peace.

I am choosing to pause in this post, as there is more to this story, out of reverence, compassion, and a need to stop and pray for those who need a "Hannah" miracle in their life.

To be continued....Part 2

On My Knees,
Miss Sandy

Photo: Hannah's hand blessing gorgeous grandson