grandma's wisdom
by deAnne hampton

Yesterday, at the end of a long day, within a life that often feels too full of change to find any real rest...I had an image of myself closing my eyes and slipping slowly beneath the water's surface.

No struggle. No desperation. The sense was that of a need for more than just sleep.

I was slipping beneath this calm, peaceful, timeless well of wait, to be soothed in my surrender.

Perhaps some inner divine grace, seeking my growth and becoming, was asking me to enter the question instead of following it around each day.

Turning it over and over in my mind like a leaf that gets caught by the wind and seems to have a life of its own. The question that summons us from a deep and holy place within, like the animated leaf, is just an illusion that busies our mind and keeps us unaware of the source.

God often puts truth in unorthodox places.

Slipping beneath the water for deep rest and renewal from the constant questions of my life, I found a long ago and forgotten memory. A memory of my grandmother and me.

Though she’s been gone from this life for over twenty years...I still consider her to be one of the wisest and purest people I have ever known.

I remember spending the night with her, as I often did, lying in a double bed together after the lights were out. She told me a story, as she often did , but on this particular night I could not get to sleep. I, in my seven or eight year old body, was fidgety, antsy, uncomfortable. Something wasn’t right. I felt an ache in my legs that I was doing my best to hide.

But the tears and small sniffles gave me away. The moment grandmas voice of concern came out of the looming darkness, I cried.

As was always the case with the woman I believed had a direct line to God, she assuaged every false assumption that something must be terribly wrong with me —and began to massage the little legs and ankles and feet that wanted nothing more than to be able to fill her shoes. She assured me that the prickling needles and twisting that felt like vines gripping the ability to walk right out of my legs was growing pains.

And from her treasure chest of wisdom that awes me to this day she added, “Sometimes it hurts to grow”. God often puts truth in unorthodox places.
I might add then, and now, sometimes it is scary, too.

When the aching breaks into our lives, through the stretching skin of a small child or the shedding skin of an emerging soul... we must somehow find the courage to say yes.

Just let the questions go and say yes! Go right to their center and LIVE the questions out loud.

I feel a shift occurring from that deep well of holiness that provides both respite and the seed of my becoming. A shift from the collective they to the individual I.

I think the first half of our lives is spent developing the ego and following a rapid flowing river of questions. The second half we get to develop the soul.

Enter the question and sink beneath the still waters in wait. An incubation of sorts. And somewhere from within the stillness I am reminded of the words of Henry David Thoreau: “Nothing can be more useful to a man than the determination not to be hurried”.

Waiting can be a time of fertile emptiness.

Sometimes we cannot get in touch with what we really know until we let go of what we think we know. About life. Its meaning. Our purpose within it.

It is a cultural myth really that waiting is doing nothing.

Often busyness and speed can be a way to avoid the inner conditions of our lives —the secret yearnings and quiet desperation.

I am beginning to believe that in my waiting, I meet with my bravest self.

It is NOT doing nothing. I am giving my soul permission to grow into its magnificence and allowing love to transform me. Again and again.

In transformation—we collaborate with grace and determine to BE the answer to all of our questions.

DeAnne Hampton is a former teacher and is currently in private practice as a therapist. She sees herself more as a “light on the path” for those inspired and yearning to change, yet in need of a support system. She has just completed a book she on Interior Joy! She can be reached at 828-296-0630 or mtnjoy2@cs.com.