Generations

Written before church this morning: Looking for a frugal Christmas, I compiled for my grandchildren items from their great-grandparents lives.

Both my father and my father-in-law wrote some poetry. Dad also wrote on a long roll of paper, sharing memories from his childhood. Mom had kept a steno book full of notes of her childhood and about her family. One of my husband’s cousins wrote questions for her three aunts, then in their nineties, about their childhood and transcribed them for her cousins.

I took all that material, added some additional information along with photos and created binders for my grandchildren, including a folder where they can slip photos and notes to add to it. It is my intention to add to it over the years with additional information and stories from my husband and myself.

Among the poetry my father-in-law wrote was one that he also had read at his funeral, and would be a fitting gospel for my own. My grandson-in-law read it and it fit right in to a melody he had been working on. If all goes well, it will become a part of his upcoming album. That would be such a blessing, and carry a family belief even a generation further.

Martin wrote an addendum to his will in 1932 commending trust in Jesus Christ for all of his children. His son, John, wrote a poem speaking of how he was close to God. His son, David, chose to follow in their footsteps, raising his children within God’s love, as did his daughter, Nancy. Her daughter married a young preacher, who also sings the gospel of our Lord. Her daughter, just before age two, sings “The B I B L E, yes that’s the book for me!” Six generations.

Some might say (as one man did to me) that each generation led the next astray, not allowing them to learn on their own, making them lean on the crutch of religion. While it is true that each generation had the example of the one before, let me assure you, these are independent people who have known rebellion and return.

And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (Deuteronomy 6:5-7 KJV)

Added after church this morning, since this morning’s service was about family, doing as our fathers. Christ spoke to that:

I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. (John 8:38-41 KJV)

Jesus went further and told them who their father was.

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8:44 KJV)

We get to choose our spiritual father. I choose the One to speaks the truth of, and to, the great I AM.