Prayer for grandmothers

Father, Proverbs 11:25 says that when we water others, we get watered too. I have seen that come true across my life. The friend I prayed for in 1981 prayed me through a hard year in 2009. The neighbor I helped move in 1987 brought meals after my surgery. That is just how Your world works. Generous lives stay watered. Closed-up lives dry out. I have seen both. I want to be the watered kind in the years I have left.

Lord, the watering I can do now is small. A note. A phone call. An hour of listening to someone else's hard story without changing the subject. A meal sent over. A book passed along. I am not lifting houses anymore. I am passing cups. But the cups still count. Your promise still holds.

Make me a watering woman today. Not a striving one. Not one always worried about how I look. Just one who notices the dry patch in someone else's day and reaches for the cup that is already on the table. Then help me trust that the same promise is at work the other way, when my own day goes dry.

Amen.