Vocabulary My Italian Grandmother Taught Me

My paternal grandparents don't speak English. They know a few key phrases and words, and have the uncanny talent of understanding your English when you really don't want them to, but as a general rule, they will look at you with a quizzical brow and say "Non capisco" when you forget and ramble in English.

When I was living in Montreal with my grandparents my linguistic life looked like this: English at university/work, French in public, Italian at home. At times all three languages were muddled into what I affectionately called Frenglian (Fr-Eng-Lian). Sometimes in the morning I would shuffle into the kitchen, drawn by the promise of fresh espresso, only to be bombarded by an overflowing of Italian. At moments like that, I would squint, hold up my hand and plead "Please, it is too early to translate without caffeine." Caffeine was a word that was understood and a filled espresso cup would magically appear. And then the bombardment continued.

My grandmother always gets the words "grouchy" and "crunchy" mixed up, so according to her, today I was very "crunchy." The past few months have been an emotional roller coaster (to be addressed in a separate post) and this morning I was steeped in a melancholic rut. It was just one of those mornings where the minute your eyes opened, the Devil was waiting to shoot you with your doubts and insecurities right between the eyes.

If my grandmother had been here she would have looked at me with certainty and said "Dio provvede." God provides. So simple, yet so profoundly true. It is often the simple things that we have hardest time understanding or believing. After all, one of the names that God is called is in the Old Testament is Jehovah Jireh, which means "the Lord will provide." He will provide. There is never any question about maybe, or He hasn't decided or gotten around to it, I'm not a priority, yada yada yada. It is a definitive promise and assurance. It will happen. Those words had the equivalent affect on my frame of mind as Cher slapping me and saying "Snap outta it!" (You know, from Moonstruck):

Am I cured? No. Because I am human and flawed, at times I will be confronted with  insecurities about the future; but I have the blessed assurance that whenever I feel that way I can always turn to the comforting arms of my Provider. Because He always comes through. There is no hurdle too high for Him to jump, no road block too daunting. So God, I got the message...and I snapped out of it :)