Every kid needs guidance. They don't always get it from their parents, but in my case I did. I think I was two years old when my family started going to church, so I don't have a memory outside of that culture. Some of my earliest memories are of things like my dad teaching me to pray, my mom teaching Sunday School and Bible Clubs in our home, and my dad gathering the family to read from the Bible before bedtime. I learned how to read by reading the Bible.
My family wasn't perfect. We were kinda weird in a lot of ways. My mom became sick and bedridden when I started first grade, so dad cooked our meals and took us all to church during that time. Mom remained ill with one affliction or another up until I was a teenager. I was the youngest of five children and very close to my mom. I would often stay home with her while the rest of the family went to Sunday or Wednesday evening church services. I was always afraid she would die, so I asked God to let my mom live to see my first child.
One November, I had just turned 12, my mom was laying in her bed and I was sitting with her. She told me she thought this was it - that she was going to die. I began to pray for her and the room started shaking violently. After a few minutes, Mom said she felt like she would be okay. The newspaper headlines the next day said there had been an earthquake centered in Illinois. To me, the timing was supernatural. Mom didn't have an instantaneous healing, but she soon started on some new medication that really helped. By the time I started high school, mom started to go back to church and even teach children again. Eventually, we started teaching together.
Mom was able to be at our wedding. A couple of years later, she and dad were at the hospital with us when Darcy was born 5 weeks early and nearly didn't survive. Mom went with me to the hospital every day for 3 weeks until Darcy was well enough to be released. Then she spoiled her as much as we would allow.
Mom had several battles with cancer that began in 1978 and she passed away in November of 1979 - just a month before Mandy was born. It took me a while to recall what I had asked God to do for me... to let my mom live to see my first child. It made a little easier to let her go when I realized he had loaned her more time.
My parents, especially my mom, helped shape my lifelong relationship with God. I could easily sing the Compass in My Soul song Darcy wrote...
You have raised up this child
In the way she should go
And I will not depart
There's a Compass in my soul
2 comments:
I could listen to that story over and over again. I guess I already have. :) Did Grandma Elsie ever say anything about what she thought when the room was shaking?
It is only in retrospect that I connected the prayer and the earthquake, and the significance of my request didn't really become remarkable until after she was gone. Like my nephew Scott once said, it is in looking back that we most vividly see God at work. You and I will have to get together with Grandma Elsie in Heaven to talk about it.
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