Has Your Sufficiency Been Surrensified?

MAY 2024 ~ ISSUE 123

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Has Your Sufficiency Been Surrensified?
The Story of Grandma Brewer and Me – by Carole Brewer

Irene Brewer was a descendant of Captain Thomas Stevenson, an officer who served under the command of General George Washington. Her mother was a cousin of Charles Stratton, better known as Tom Thumb, the international star of the P.T. Barnum Museum in New York City. Born in 1890, Grandma Brewer became my good friend during the last thirteen of her ninety-seven years on earth.

Just two days before my wedding to Jan Brewer, my own maternal grandmother had a stroke. She survived for two months afterwards leaving us with her sweet blessings and commissioning my husband and me to love and take care of each other. With her passing, I was a newlywed with no living grandparents. God lovingly gave me Grandma Brewer!

Grandma was a Christian who wrote witty poems, gave marvelous dramatic readings, and gifted her family with numerous crocheted “affa-ghans” She was known amongst family and friends as a prolific quilter. As we developed our relationship, Grandma B. taught me how to cut up a chicken and make banana bread. She also sparked my interest in scrap booking because she was the champ.

Many times upon entering my in-laws’ home, Grandma Brewer would greet me with a breath-taking bear hug that would, for a moment, make me wonder if my rib cage would remain in tact. After one of those incredible hugs, I remember Grandma’s warm robust voice asking, “How’s your hycopperosity?” Stopping for a moment to consider the unusual question, I replied with a giggle, “Fine thanks. How’s yours?” With a twinkling eye and a broad smile, she enthusiastically replied, “Fine!”

On most holidays, her beautiful daisy embroidered table cloth and napkins graced the Brewer family table. At each event, she would proudly show the backside saying, “You won’t find a single knot.” It was true. The back looked as neatly stitched as the front.

While she passed the potatoes and sweet corn twice and then three times, Grandma would ask whimsically, “Has your sufficiency been surrensified?” What a great word! You won’t find it in the dictionary but it sounded like a great description of how I felt after that hugely fortifying meal; surely surrendered and most solidly satisfied. Surrensified!

Irene Brewer was the mother of three, the grandmother of nine, the great-grandmother of seven, and the great-great grandmother of three yet she had plenty of love left for me. She filled an empty space in my heart with a banquet of love offerings that left me more than full and satisfied.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Corinthians 12:9a NIV

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
1 John 4:7 NIV