Project Emily Advent: Day 22
How do you hope your grandchildren will describe you?
Kind
I hope my grandchildren describe me as kind. I hope they feel warmth and gentleness emanating from my person every time they’re around me. I hope they remember friendly greetings to grocery store clerks and gentle words to the person who accidentally knocks our cart. I hope they don’t remember a single harsh word or unkind joke. I hope they only feel deeply loved and wildly important when they are with me.
Elegant
I hope they describe me as elegant. I hope they say that I dressed well and that I took good care of my skin and that I invested in my beauty because I felt like I was worth the trouble. In my mind, a key to elegance is a peaceful disposition. In their bestselling book Captivating, John and Stasi Eldredge often use the phrase “beauty at rest” to describe women. This type of woman is not frantic or uncertain or looking for some sort of validation in a world unqualified to give it. She is at rest, confident in her identity, resting safely in her knowing that God is good and so is she.
Present
I hope my grandchildren describe me as present. I hope they think of me as someone who is not easily distracted, who listens well. I hope they remember me as a person who asked good questions, who remembered the answers, who was willing to enter their world of interests and delights. I hope they think of me as someone who stopped to enjoy life, someone who never rushed, someone who did not give in to the temptation of the false importance that busyness provides.
What I find interesting about this prompt is that these are not necessarily the characteristics I most want to be known for right now. I most want to be described as smart, capable, creative. But for some reason, those things don’t seem to matter to a future Emily, a woman who has already proven herself, to herself. I wonder if there is a way that I could grab on to that knowing that she seems to have, right now.
