Necessity - Invention - Cool!
It's warm enough here (mid-70's) that I went for a bike ride this afternoon. I needed the stress relief and few things work like pushing through a brisk bike ride.
January 3 is a significant date in our family for a few reasons. One of them - it is (was?) my maternal grandmother's birthday.
< Grandma Helen with my mom (10?) in front of the family home
I was blessed to have four godly grandparents that I look forward to seeing in heaven some day. Both my grandfathers died when I was relatively young and I have very few memories of them. Both my grandmothers lived well beyond the death of their husbands and I can picture both like I just saw them yesterday. My dad's mom, Ella, was Norwegian, my mom's mom, Helen, Swedish. That explains my good looks and near perfect disposition.
Grandma Helen and Grandpa (Fred) holding my older brother >
Grandma Helen lived in Everett, just north of Seattle, so we saw her often. We'd go up there and she'd come to our house. I remember staying with her on my summer break for a few days. I went through most of my childhood and adolescence pretty oblivious to the world around me; didn't really gain full consciousness until about three weeks after our wedding. (Marriage tends to wake one up.) But I remember Grandma Helen as a godly woman who loved me (all of us) and cared.
Which is why this little red book of hers (the pen is for perspective) is one of my treasured possessions. It's her record of her giving to the Lord's work, with one page for each month, covering several years.
You'll notice that on each of these two pages, June and July of '72, there's an entry that reads, "Craig" and has "$15" written in the right column. She sent me that amount every month I was away at Bible college, a real sacrifice in 1972 dollars for a woman living on Social Security. She wanted to do what she could to support a young guy preparing for pastoral ministry. And because I was bad dirt poor it was a significant amount to me.
The widow's mite.
If I remember correctly, she died shortly after I graduated, while I was serving in my first church. But that experienced was so brief it might have been at my second church. Either way, here I am 37 years later humbled by her sacrifice and thankful for her support.
I probably didn't say it as I should have then.
Thank you, Grandma Helen, for your sacrificial gift and example of grace.
1 comment:
Wow...that is really neat.
I'm thankful for my godly heritage too. My maternal grandmother was pretty faithful in writing to me while I was at GBC. She died (unexpectedly) just a few months after Dave and I got married. I'm so glad I saved her letters. Sometimes I simply like to look at her handwriting.
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