The smell of fresh crayons makes me smile…

What is it with school supplies?   There is such a wonderful smell to them.  It’s right up there with that first day in fall when there is a crisp feel in the air and everything seems suddenly refreshed.

There are certain smells that send me right back to the halls of Medlock Elementary school.  If I could find a cardboard school box, I would put in a box of eight crayons, 2 sharpened pencils, a bottle of Elmer’s glue, a pair of safety scissors, a pink eraser, and a ruler.  Then I would put in on my desk at home and from time to time close my eyes, open the lid, and sniff.  Oh sweet childhood—it’s good to smell you again!  

Interestingly the smell of Pine-Sol has the same effect because the janitor at our elementary school was all about those black and white tiled floors being perfectly shiny, spotless, and clean.

Blend in the smell of a good cooked lunch with a Pine-Sol floor and you have our school cafeteria.  The janitor loved that white speckled tile in the cafeteria to be equally shiny, spotless, and clean.  The food was amazing in the cafeteria.  Maybe because it was the 70s, and food was still “real” and not so processed.  There weren’t a million choices.  You either ate what they had for the meal that day or you brought your lunch.  But the odds were good that the lunch was something your Grandma would have made you if you were at her house for lunch.  I remember some excellent lunches in elementary school—and I was proud to have my name on the clean plate club!

Of course when my mom bought me the coolest Snoopy doghouse lunchbox it was hard to decide between the delicious, school meal or the baloney with mayonnaise sandwich on white bread and Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie packed inside of Snoopy’s house!  How can you expect an 8 year old to make that kind of life decision?  That lunch box was AWESOME!

…. Just paused in my typing long enough to look on EBay. 

 And may I just say, what can’t you find on EBay?  Now I will have to bid on this and pack a baloney with mayo on white bread sandwich with a Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream pie and put it on my desk next to the school box with the awesome smelling crayons and freshly sharpened pencils.  Honestly, I’m in 4^th grade again and loving it!!

And what about you?  What smells take you right back to your school days?  Hoping and praying that those memories are sweet for you and that you can find a memorable smell that takes you back today!

I never noticed...

If you were born in 1907, struck with polio in 1910 at the age of three, and your legs lost most of their strength, you would have been called ‘crippled’.  It was not politically incorrect to say crippled in those days.  In fact, the words 'politically incorrect' didn’t exist in those days. 

My Granddaddy’s father was a farmer.  He lived in a time when you grew your own food, hunted for your dinner, and worked hard every day.  He was a young man with a four year old daughter, a three year old son who was now ‘crippled’ and would never be able to help on the farm, and a six month old infant.  He went out hunting for dinner one afternoon and laid his gun against a wooden fence as he climbed over it.  No one knows the details, but the gun discharged as he climbed over the fence and suddenly my Granddaddy’s daddy was dead.

There were rumors that he might have shot himself, but those who knew him well said this just was not in his nature.  He loved the Lord, loved his wife, and loved his kids. The rumors hurt his heartbroken wife, who was suddenly a widow with two small children (one disabled) and an infant.  But then... unfounded rumors always hurt don't they?

There was no time to grieve.  She did what most hardworking women of that era would have done-- she kept going.  She sold their farm and home and moved to town.  They were still in the country so this was not a big city.  She found a job as a bookkeeper.  She was good with figuring numbers.  She worked hard.  She never married again.  She raised her children.  She provided shelter, food, and medical care for her son.  

I was six months old when ‘Mama’ died—everyone called her Mama.  There is a picture of the two of us when I was two months old. She is dressed up in her Sunday best, as am I, and I am laying on her like a sack of flour.  Neither one of us is smiling.  I don’t look unhappy—I look content, comfortable.  She’s not smiling, but she looks content, comfortable, satisfied with a life well lived, and pleased to be holding the only great-granddaughter she will ever have.  Her face shows that she has worked hard all her life, but again, I see the satisfaction of a life well lived for the Lord in her eyes.

 Contentment

I would give anything to know this woman.  Know her story.  What was it like to live her life?  How did she manage?  Did she ever have time for tears?  Late at night when she was lying alone in her bed missing her precious husband, knowing the rumors that were swelling, wondering how her son would ever become a man. In a time when men needed their legs for work and a boy always needed his father, did she cry out to the Lord and ask Him to guide each step?

She raised three hard working children.  Her oldest daughter was a shopkeeper with her husband. She was never able to have children of her own but they adopted a son later in life.  Her youngest daughter moved to the big city of Atlanta and worked all her life.  She never married, but was very close to her big brother who also lived in Atlanta.  My Granddaddy, Mama’s only son, was gifted with numbers just like his mother.  He was a wonderful salesman, businessman, and worked hard never letting his legs stop his productivity.  He loved the Lord with all his heart, and he was blessed with a heart full of kindness and love for others.  People loved him for who he was and wanted to help him succeed.  I can’t help but wonder about the family and church members who must have come along side to help Mama raise such a wonderful man of God.

The polio caused his legs to never work properly.  He had surgery after surgery.  He wore braces on his legs.  Depending on the day and the pain level you might find him using his cane, crutches, or a wheelchair.  He met my Grandmother Faith and feel instantly in love.  Two people with such big hearts were meant to find each other!

I once asked my grandmother, “How did you and Granddaddy meet?”  She told me that he was a boy in the area that she knew.  Her family had moved to town after the boll weevils ate the cotton crop one too many years in a row.  Her daddy ran a diner in town.  I’m not sure where they met.  I believe her words were—“Oh, we were running with the same crowd.”  She said, “I never noticed he was crippled.  It just didn’t matter.  The Lord wanted me to love this man, and I did. The Lord just gave me a big heart of love for him.”

Through the years my grandmother said a lot of wonderful and wise things to me, but this statement filled me heart with respect and love.  “I never noticed… it just didn’t matter.”  Clearly it was obvious that his legs didn’t work.  He walked differently.  He wasn’t strong.  He didn’t play sports or work a farm in a time when farming was the major occupation in South Georgia.  And yet, God filled her heart with love for this man, and because of that she didn’t notice, and it didn’t matter.  

They married in the early 30s.  They stood with the preacher in her parent’s house.  She wore her Sunday best, carried flowers (it was April and she had a beautiful bouquet picked straight out of the yard), her sister played the piano, and her five year old nephew cried his heart out because Aunt Faith was moving to the big city.  After the ceremony, the families ate a big country lunch together.  Granddaddy and Grandmother Faith packed their car and drove to the city.  A family friend had offered Granddaddy a sales position with Hav-a-Tampa in Atlanta.  They had rented a little apartment downtown.  They drove on mostly unpaved roads the whole way.  Grandmother had a pound of butter in her lap that someone had churned, wrapped in wax paper, and handed her as a wedding gift through as they left their hometown.

 Such love!

I try to imagine the thoughts going through their heads.  Grandmother said it was raining so those unpaved roads from Carrollton to Atlanta had to be bumpy.  Can you imagine their excitement?  Everything lush and green from the rain, a new start to a new life, leaving small town life and moving to the big city, starting their married life together.  Grandmother must have known that their life would be hard.  She would have to do things that her husband would be unable to do, but she considered it pure joy.  She loved this man that the Lord had brought to her.  She loved this life God had given her.  She was in for a great adventure and a great life.  

There is so much more to tell—but for today, just know that this woman who would become my grandmother, lived her life with her whole heart, and she married an amazing Christian man who loved her every day of his life.  She lived out Proverbs 31, the virtuous wife, in ways that would be impossible to capture with my simple words.  She was a shining example to me of how to be a woman of God.  She taught me lessons that I use every day of my life.  Most importantly she taught me to see with my heart more than with my eyes; because sometimes in life, it is better to ‘just not notice’ the obvious flaws in others but to see them as a creation of God and remember He loves them more than we can imagine.  

What a life lesson…

Her hand prints...

When I was homeschooling my kids full time, we did a wonderful Bible study from BJU called Bible Truths.  It was a great study that had us digging deep into the Word.

 

But here is a real “Bible Truth”.  I don’t read my Bible enough.  What I mean is I don’t pick up the Word and dive into it the way I should.  I have certain authors that I really love, Beth Moore, Francis Chan, and David Platt to name a few.  I love how they make me think, present the Word in a way I have never thought of, share truth even when it’s hard to hear, and push me to be less than comfortable in my own skin--- in a good way.  I read the verses recommended from devotionals, blogs, and these wonderful authors I read, but the truth is I’ve started to read more from these people than from the real Book.  I’ve become lazy in that I want it spoon fed to me by someone who has already figured it out.

I grew up watching my Grandmother Faith and Granddaddy read their Bibles daily.  They were born and raised Baptists.  They lived out their faith in the most authentic way I’ve ever seen.  They didn’t stand on street corners and shout to people that they were going to burn in a lake of fire.  They didn’t pound their fists on their Bible and exclaim the truths it held.  Instead, they showed their faith daily.  

They provided when there was need.  If someone needed food, they made it and delivered it.  If someone needed shelter, their home was open.  Everyone was welcome in their home and in their life.  They gave until it hurt and then some.  They lived Christianity.  They taught me what it meant to love God, others, and self.  I can’t imagine the hours my grandmother must have spent praying me through my teens.  Thank You, Jesus, that she did or I might not be here to type this.

Since I grew up so close to them and since my brother and I were their only grandchildren, we spent a lot of weekends at their home.  I remember waking up at their home on Saturdays more than at my own.  Brother and I both had our own rooms at their house!  My strongest childhood Saturday morning memories were waking up to the sound of the peculator bubbling, the good smell of coffee, bacon, and biscuits, and then hearing Granddaddy read the morning devotional and the Bible at the table.  I loved how he would get out his Bible, read from it, discuss it, and apply it.  It all made sense when he talked about it.  It was comforting, interesting, and exciting.  Exactly what the Bible should be.

I think the other thing I loved was that Grandmother Faith and Granddaddy lived out their faith seven days a week.  The Lord wasn’t a topic of discussion on Sundays.  He was a part of their lives, and He was always present.

One of my sweetest possessions is my Grandmother Faith’s Bible.  Right before she passed away, she gave me her Bible and told me that she wanted my sweet husband to read the ‘love’ chapter at her graveside.  (1 Corinthians 13) It was one of her favorites.  I gave the Bible to Chance, and he read the passage just as she had requested.  Then he gave the Bible back to me.  I took it home but couldn’t really look at it at first.  It was too much a part of her.  Grandmother always had her Bible near her.  I saw her read it often.  She wasn’t reading the latest new author in the Christian writing scene, but she was reading her favorite author… God. 

A few weeks after she had passed away, I picked up her Bible and noticed something for the first time in my life.  Her hand prints were on her Bible.  She had held that Bible so often, so close, that her hand prints were worn on the cover.  I picked up that sweet Book, and put my hands on her hand prints.  I felt like I was holding hands with her again, and it felt wonderful.  I missed her so much and here was her sweetest legacy to me sitting in my lap.

As I opened the pages of her Bible, I was hoping to find underlined passages and words written on the side.  Grandmother was not a highlighter or a writer. What I found instead were worn pages, thin from constant use. She had tucked lots of little pieces of paper into her Bible-- a clipping from a bulletin with a meaningful saying, a prayer that had been written down, a list of verses for the bereaved.  Some things looked very old.  Some things were new.  Had she tucked them in knowing I would find them?  Were they little notes and messages for me?  Was this her way of continuing to pass her precious wisdom on to me after she had left this earth?

So I think to myself, 'How’s my Bible doing?'  Is it getting worn from constant use?  Are my hand prints worn on the cover?  I love Grandmother Faith’s Bible.  I love her.  But most of all, I love my Savior.  And now I’m realizing I need to get back to the basics of letting Him speak to me.  I can do it best by returning to His word and letting Him speak to me through that Living Bible.  It was written just for me (and just for you.)  And it is enough.   

So today I am praying my children will one day hold my worn Bible in their hands as a testimony of my love for the Lord and His good Word.  Thinking about this today…