My Family Blessing...A "Quilt "Made Over a Lifetime

What an amazing group of people I can call my family! Starting with relatives far and near and ending with my husband and children, they are all still such an important part of my life. Even though time and distance may separate us, my memories and love seem to grow stronger.

First of all, I want to thank my parents for teaching me about God and for taking me to church. I loved eating life savers(they had to keep me quiet somehow) during Sunday morning services and slipping from one pew to another to sit with my favorite old ladies. Sunday nights always seemed special to me. I loved the slight stuffiness and the muted lights inside the safe-feeling sanctuary. The preacher's voice and message always seemed more urgent and pleading in the semi-darkness. It was on a Sunday night when I was 8 years old, that I first felt the weight of my sin and knew that I needed to let Jesus come into my life and wash me clean. My daddy and I were sitting on the back pew of the church and I'll never forget the sadness that rushed over me as I began to understand that I was separated from God because of my sin and how much I had hurt Him. Believe me, I had no trouble understanding my sinful nature. Let's just say I had a reputation for being rather imaginative, energetic and demanding...well, I was an only child. When we got to the car, after church, I was crying. Thank goodness my daddy took the time to question me and then take me right back in the sanctuary to speak to the pastor that night. I remember getting home and going in the kitchen door and daddy telling mama that her little girl had gotten saved that night. What a joyful time we had! The only sad part was that my mama was always very sickly and she had stayed home that night and she wished so much she could have been there, too! I can never repay my parents for all their love and encouragement through all the years!

I can't say enough about my entire family as I was growing up. I have so many happy memories...playing wild all over the mountains, chewing teaberry roots, sitting in a bountiful ripe cherry tree and eating as much as I wanted, bouncing in the Jeep to the top of the mountain, eating currants right off the bush in Grandma's garden, fishing for crawdads with a safety pin, hiking to the scuppernong vines, drinking water from the rusty community dipper at the roadside spring, picking blackberries, going to look for my mama's old gensing patch, chasing the banty(is that a real word?)roosters, gathering eggs from the henhouse, playing the old pump organ in the hallway and spending long, chilly nights listening to the sounds coming across the valley, along with the constant tick tock of the cuckoo clock by the front door. A real love of God's creation was instilled in me from an early age.

Then there were the infamous road trips where we traveled all night to get to Florida, where we had to see the orange groves at 60 mph because we always had to try to beat our best time. I loved sleeping on the back porch of a relative's home close to Cape Canaveral. I never knew what wild animal sounds I was hearing during the steamy nights, but I was thankful for the screen in between me and them. The Myrtle Beach trips were plentiful and so much fun! We never had much money, but we loved to travel together as a big family and our caravans were such an adventure, even if we inevitably lost a car or two along the way and had to wait or turn around to find them! My grandma also loved to take a huge picnic to Tanglewood Park and have the whole family hang out together, talking, planning more times together, playing horseshoes, playing putt-putt or just hanging around on the jungle gym(which I fell off one time and completely knocked myself out...that may help account for some of my current brain spasms). Last but not least, I cherish the bowling nights we all had. I just remember being so small, I had to roll the ball with 2 hands. What fun, except for the stinky shared bowling shoes...

As I said, I had a wonderful childhood. I can't possibly write enough to convey the sense of belonging and security that I felt. Don't get me wrong, things weren't perfect...but I believe God is finally teaching me the secret of my grandmother's unconditional love for us all, no matter what was going on in our lives. You just simply have to live a certain amount of life in order to see God's wonderful plan and experience His amazing grace and love, as you see it played out over and over in the lives of your family members and yourself.

My "lifetime quilt" has been stitched so lovingly by so many wonderful hands. We can't see the beautiful pattern as it's being sewn together, as it's being lived one glorious or painful piece at a time, but when our journey here is complete, we will see our "quilt" and we will marvel at God's awesome handiwork!

My life has an emerging purpose now. I am praying prayers that will be stitched into the beautiful life "quilts" of my children's and my nephews' futures. Isn't God amazing for allowing us to be a part of His work????????

I hope you will share your blessings with me, too!