I'm sitting in the airport, waiting for the plane that will take me to Minnesota, to Grandma's funeral.

Even as I was writing out my thoughts and prayers yesterday, considering the more ominous signs of Grandma's life slipping away, it turns out that she was breathing her last breaths. Early in the Minnesota morning, the first morning in July 2011, Elizabeth (Betty) Asp "went to her reward."

I've been thinking a lot about that phrase over the last 24 hours or so: My Grandma, gone to her reward. It's kind of an old-fashioned euphemism for death, something that I assocoate with old Baptist clergymen preaching in a little, white-sided, sharp-steepled church-house, planted out among the waving grasses of the North American prairies. But then again, that's not so far off from the life that my Grandma Asp actually lived. Up until yesterday, when she went to her reward. One of the items that I made sure to pack, as I was scrambling to prepare for a last-minute booking to America, was the self-published memoires of my Grandma's life. Now, when I say "self-published," I mean a three-ring binder filled with plastic sleeves containing print-outs from the senior citizens apartment complex community computer. It's totally hand-made, totally unpretentious... totally Grandma. She's filled out the binder gradually, over the last couple of Christmases, and I find myself absolutely spellbound by the stories from decades and decades of being a "missionary" (Grandma enjoyed using that term, only half tongue-in-cheek) to the Swedes and Norwegians of central Minnesota. She and my Grandpa worked in little churches in little places with names like Clotho and Kerkhoven and Lake Crystal. But their impact was big. It wasn't the kind of thing that would garner national headlines -- a church building project there, a few folks baptized there -- but looking at their overall "body of work," including post-retirement ministry and family involvement, it really is quite impressive to see the way that they lived their lives.

Both of my grandparents understood, appreciated, and lived by, the grace of God, which means they would be the first to admit that no one "earns" their way to Heaven by doing good things or being nice people; still, it somehow feels appropriate to say that their promotion to Heaven is "going to their reward." It feels deeply satisfying and gives great peace to know that Grandma and Grandpa are now both together in God's presence. Rewarded indeed.