It was called The Gratitude Game in the youngest grade Sunday School class. I asked the children to think for a few minutes of what they were most grateful for. Then we went around the table one by one. The answers were fairly predictable. “My new dolly,” “the scooter I got for my birthday,” “our trip to Disneyland.” Then one little boy, still pondering his answer, finally lifted his head and, with deep sincerity replied in words drawn out slowly for emphasis, “I’m just grateful for my nice, warm bed!”
How often I’ve thought of this when I needed rest and comfort. What could be more satisfying than my own “nice warm bed?”
Yesterday I helped my twenty-three year old granddaughter get an air mattress with a soft top to put in a room of her own. Katie works in a flower shop, has become a floral designer too, but times have been tough for her and up to now she has not had her very own room since she left home. “All I want, Grandma, is something I can afford. Just four white walls and the space inside to call my very own.” She added, “of course I’d need a bed.” With a lot of prayer and footwork, in the space of a few days her room came. It is in a well-kept condominium complex near her work and the church she’s currently attending. Not far from the library and a bus stop too. And, for frosting on the cake, it has a balcony overlooking a small grassy park with a few trees and some swings!
I’ve often thought about that chapter of independent living in a young woman’s life which was skipped over in my own life. After two years of college, when I was barely nineteen, I got married. Mr. Right came along sooner than usual, but at the right time for me. He was six years older, had begun a career as fighter pilot in the Marine Corps, and was ready to give up the bachelor officers’ quarters for family life. Having had a few years keeping house and cooking for my dad and younger brothers, becoming a young bride was probably the job I was most qualified for after two years of college.
From then on we had a pillar-to-post life, rearing three children as we moved every two years or less. I figured out the other day that I’ve lived in exactly thirty-two places in my lifetime and in each one there was a “nice warm bed.” Home, from the very start, was the core of my spiritual and physical well-being. Usually, it was my job to find one as Wally G., my husband, got checked into a new base and tour of duty. Often, especially during wartime, housing near Marine bases was scarce and base housing limited to Quonset huts until we found a place in the community.
The first tour of duty after our wedding was an air base outside of El Centro, CA. We stayed in a small hotel at first. When Sunday came around we went to a branch church of the denomination we’d both been brought up in. It was small and homey and friendly. In the pocket on the hymnal rack I found a pamphlet with the words on it: “Pilgrim on earth, thy home is heaven. Stranger, thou art the guest of God.” Although the house-finding had seemed impossible before, (some friends even looked at a reconverted chicken coop,) I knew right then that God had a home for us. That very day a couple going away for the summer answered an ad we'd put in the paper and a delightful little cottage, fully furnished down to pot holders and piano, was ours at a rent we could afford. $65.00 a month! Each time we moved thereafter, with prayer and the true spirit of home in our hearts, a perfect place met our needs.
So, the other day when Katie needed to find a place of her own, and I was available to help her, our first step was to attend the local church. It was a sweet experience. The members were warm and friendly, but none knew of a spare room to offer her. After a couple of days' research on the Internet, Katie found an ad for the room I mentioned above.
We have high hopes that she is on her way to living out that chapter of a young woman’s life that I missed, independent singleness before finding Mr. Right, and going on to a long family saga that she can look back on, as I do, with rich memories in her grandmotherly days.
To begin with it will take faith, (her middle name is Faith,) prayer and her new “nice, warm bed!”
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