Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, and, therefore, the first day of Lent.

What are you giving up for Lent??  I've decided to give up procrastinating because that is obviously one of my most beloved pastimes of late.  We'll see how long this lasts, but I'm going to try.

We give up something we enjoy for Lent as a penance or self-punishment for all our transgressions and Christian short-comings.  Some people actually do fast for the 40 days of Lent (not counting Sundays).  Some people include things in their daily schedules like reading daily scriptures or the like to help them be more mindful Christians during this time.

I'm not going to fast though because if I do, my medicine will make me very sick.  This getting old thing is not as much fun as I was led to believe as a child.

Yes, it is exactly 40 days, not counting Sundays, from Ash Wednesday until Easter, which happens to fall on my younger granddaughter's Sweet 16 birthday this year.  Traditionally, those are 40 days of fasting, with feasting on the Sundays. 

Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, and other Christian denominations observe Ash Wednesday.  Ashes from the blessed and burned palm branches of the previous year's Palm Sunday are placed on the foreheads of worshipers as the pastor or priest says:

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19)

This is a day in which we are reminded of our mortality and sinfulness, so that we can truly appreciate the gift of forgiveness that Jesus gave us with his mortal life.  After the self-discovery of Lent, we will be able to better understand Jesus's sacrifice for us and appreciate the joy we feel in celebrating His resurrection come Easter Sunday.

Lent is truly a time of self-reflection.  It is a time for us to be honest with ourselves and assess why we are here and what we want to accomplish in the time we have left on this planet.  It is a time to repent of our sins and try to become the best person we can be.

Yes.  This is a daunting task.  Lent is not easy.  No one ever promised that knowing yourself and living a good life would be easy.  Much like everything else worth having, we have to work at being a good person and living a good life.  

So...today, of all days, even if you are not a Christian, please take a moment to be thankful for your life and ask yourself, "Why am I here?  What have I accomplished in this life?  What do I want to accomplish before I return to dust?  How would I like to live the rest of this life?  What can I do to become the best person I can?"

My Mama's Gift to Me: A True Story

When I was ten and a half months old my Mama bought me a book of Bible stories called, Golden Treasury of Bible Stories, and then she did something remarkable.  She read them to me.  She read them to me so much that I memorized most of them and could recite them before I started school.

The book was the Golden Treasury of Bible Stories.  It contained Bible stories and poems that were easy for a child to understand.

And it had glorious and beautiful pictures.

My mother inscribed it for me.

The book contained nearly 500 pages of stories and the Table of Contents was laid out in a way that it was easy to find a story you wanted to read.

But, perhaps, the best thing I found about the book, as I took it off my shelf today was not the well-read and well-loved stories, but the things Mama had hidden inside its pages.

I found the card where Mama had given the book to me for my birthday one year after I had become a mother.  She was so excited about giving it to me to read to my first son that she couldn't wait for my actual birthday but gave it to me early instead.

Mama also had tucked away in the pages a newspaper clipping of our neighbor's daughter, Linda Roberts, when Linda was in high school back in the 1960s.  Mama always loved the Roberts family.

I also found an old Valentine that I made for Mama when I was little.  Yes.  I have always loved dogs.  Probably since before I was actually born.

The last thing I found in the book today tells you exactly why I ended up working in education nearly all my adult life.  This is the message my Mama instilled in me from the time I was a baby.  It appears here in the form of a bookmark from National Library Week, April 12-18, 1964, but Mama lived this message.  She read to me often during my formative years, and she read the newspaper and books in front of me every single day.  

It is a magical message to send to a child.  It has the power to turn a life of poverty into the American dream.  Never stop reading.  Never stop learning.  

This is the gift my Mama gave to me.

To end today's post, here is one of the stories from my Treasury of Bible Stories book.  Enjoy!

Rev. Jim Wells and Rock Springs Baptist Church: A True Story

Today I'm still thinking about churches.

In the small town where I was born and raised, most of the churches were Baptist, as were my parents.  I was raised Baptist and brought my sons up the same.  It was not until I was in my 50s that I found the church that spoke to my true beliefs, the French Huguenot Church in lovely Charleston, South Carolina.  My ancestors were French Huguenots.  I guess their beliefs clung to my family and somehow got passed down to me, but it is true that I have spent the majority of my life in Baptist churches.

Today's post is about one of those churches and a pastor who served there.

Rock Springs Baptist Church is the church where I raised my three sons.  They were all three baptized there.  My sons and I attended church services regularly, and I taught an adult Sunday School class there for many years.  During those years the church had several pastors, but today I'm remembering the Reverend Jim Wells.

Preacher Wells' story is a somewhat unique one.  You don't meet people like Jim and his lovely wife, Lydia, everyday.  They were very special people, and I am blessed to have known them. 

When Jim and Lydia were first married, he was an alcoholic, the very worst type of alcoholic.  He would stay out drinking to all hours of the night pretty much every night and come home only when he ran out of money. Lydia would feed him and clean him up only to have him go out and do it all again the next night.  Jim would spend the grocery money on booze...the rent money...whatever money he could find. 

Now Lydia was a devout Christian.  She never gave up on Jim.  She prayed for him each and every one of those days and nights. She never asked for much of Jim in return for her loving kindness.  The only thing she would insist upon was that Jim drive her to church every Sunday.

No.  Jim wouldn't actually go inside the church, but he did drive her to the services and he picked her up when they were over, oftentimes sipping his whiskey in the car while he waited for the last song to end.

Then one day all that changed. 

Jim died. 

Jim had a major heart attack and actually died.  He was dead for several minutes.  While they were reviving his body, Jim's soul was visiting the river, Jordan.

Jim said he suddenly found himself standing on the banks of the river, Jordan, and a voice said, "Jim, I want you to clean up your life.  I want you to become a preacher.  Accept my plan for your life, and I will send you back.  Deny it and you will cross over this river never to return."

Well, Jim thought about that a few minutes.  He thought about his lovely wife, Lydia, and how he would miss her.  He thought to himself, "I can't do this.  I'm the worst of sinners.  Who would listen to me preaching?" but he didn't argue out loud with the voice.

Time seemed to stand still while he made his decision.

Suddenly, he found himself back in his body, and from that day forward, he was determined to be the best preacher he could be.  He stopped drinking.  He started helping others.  He and Lydia started taking in foster children and did the best they could to give them a good home during their stay with them.  They even adopted two special needs foster children and gave them a true home.

Eventually this path led Jim and Lydia to Rock Springs Baptist Church to bless us, the members there, with their message.  We were truly blessed!

Then one late summer Sunday in 1982 Jim told us about the upcoming revival.  He was so excited!  The revival was scheduled for every weeknight during the last week of August that year.  Summer was almost over, and Jim said it was the perfect time for revival.  He talked of nothing else.  Homecoming was on his mind and he spoke of the great Homecoming we will all have one day.

It was August 26, 1982.  My eldest son, Dave, was attending a friend's birthday party that night, so I didn't make it to church, and I'm really glad I missed that particular service.

They said Jim was preaching the most moving sermon of his career when his face changed.  He clutched his chest and fell.  Forever silent. With the whole congregation sitting in stunned disbelief. 

One of the nurses attending the service was the first to reach him.  Others called an ambulance.  They did everything in their power to revive him, but Jim had crossed that river this time.  God had called him home.

Life, however, went on in our little church on the hilltop.  We mourned Jim, and Lydia moved away, as we needed the parsonage for our next pastor and his family.   The brilliance of Autumn turned to the starkness of winter and then to spring's rebirth.  The church's little children grew and new generations took their place in the pews. 

Such is life.

But I'm remembering Jim and his message today.  I'm hoping eternal life on the other side of that river suits him just fine. 

Jim's beloved Lydia joined him the day after Christmas 2010.  I'm betting the reunion was joyful!

Yes.  I'm remembering Jim and Lydia today, and I'm hoping your lives have been touched by people like them.  All who knew them couldn't help but love them, and, as I'm thinking of them today, I'm reminded to strive to be more like them.  Loving, faithful, honest, and kind...a person worthy of being remembered.

That is my wish for you too this day. May you find blessings where you least expect them.  😇

Rock Springs Baptist Church - near Earl, North Carolina

First Baptist Church, Blacksburg, South Carolina

On September 18, 2016 the First Baptist Church in Blacksburg, South Carolina is celebrating its 140th Anniversary. Rev. Wayne Brown, an old friend of the family, will be singing, and Rev. Don Whitener will deliver the message. There will be a catered meal following the service in the church's  Family Life Center.

That's what the card I received in the mail said.  

If I were able to get away, I'd love to go to this service.  I haven't lived in Blacksburg since 1995 and stopped attending First Baptist Church decades before that when I moved from town out to the country, but First Baptist is the church of my childhood.  My oldest memories of church are there.  

They built the "new" sanctuary in 1963, but I remember the old church.  The one I attended when I was very little.  That church had such lovely stained glass windows, and huge pipe organ pipes behind the pulpit.  There was a balcony to the right, as I recall, and the Sunday School building was separate from the church back then.

The old building was full of dark wood and smelled of the furniture polish of the time.  The light through the colored windows was muted and reverent, as was I, always sitting in awe of the splendor of those windows and all the grown people around me.  Old men with fedoras in hand, and ladies wearing their Sunday finest and red lipstick with ready smiles or frowns depending on how I was behaving at the time.

The church benches had no cushions back then and the floors no carpeting.  I remember the aisles being extremely long when I was little.  Taking many many steps with my little legs to get to the front.  

In the summertime we would gather out front for Vacation Bible School. Our teachers would line us up by class group, and when the time was right, the doors would open and in we would go down those long long aisles.  

The big kids would carry the US flag, the Christian flag, and the King James Version of the Bible.  The Rev. Wayne Brown, who will be singing at the homecoming, used to be one of those big tall kids with dark hair and white teeth.  He would often carry the Christian flag as we made our way down to our spots.  

We would sing songs like Onward Christian Soldiers, Jesus Loves Me and Jesus Loves the Little Children, and we would say our pledges to the flags and to the Bible.  Then after the short service in the sanctuary we would go to our classes in the Sunday School building.

I loved Vacation Bible School and was always sad when it was over.  

Years later, in the "new" sanctuary, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and was Baptized by Preacher Miller in First Baptist Church.  

I sang soprano in the Junior Choir there until my voice changed to the alto range.  

My younger sister was married in that church.

I met some of my oldest friends there when we were just babies in the church nursery.

My Mama kept that nursery for the Sunday services for many years until her hands and feet were too crippled with arthritis to allow her to easily care for the babies.

Yes.  This was my church.

I may travel far and wide and not come home for years and years, but I left a part of my heart in that sanctuary.  It will always live there along with the echoes of all the little children's voices raised in song, "Jesus loves the little children.  All the children of the world.  Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world."

The French Protestant Huguenot Church: My True Story

It was a beautiful Sunday morning back in the late 2000s. I had decided to visit my friend, Conyers' church, St. Philip's Episcopal Church, in lovely Charleston, SC, so I drove downtown early to look for parking. 

As luck would have it I couldn't find parking outside St. Philip's, but I did find a spot down Queen Street next to Meeting Street, so I parked the car and headed down the sidewalk towards the corner of Queen and Church.

Those of you who are familiar with Charleston, SC know that the corner of Queen and Church Streets house two very historical buildings, The Dock Street Theater (aka: America's First Theater) and the French Protestant Huguenot Church. 

As I approached the corner, there were men standing in front of the Huguenot Church.  I said something like, "Good morning!" to them and they asked me where I was going.  I told them St. Philip's and they started trying to convince me to come to their church instead.  They were in a very good mood that morning, and they made me laugh.  I knew my paternal grandmother's mother's family were originally Huguenots, so I thought, "Well, why not?"

I have still never made it to St. Philip's.  I've been at the French Huguenot Church since that Sunday.  

Bill Thornton, one of the men in front of the Huguenot Church that day, walked me inside and sat me down with two of the sweetest ladies you would ever care to meet, Edith Corry and Arla Holroyd.   I called them Miss Edith and Miss Arla.  They showed me exactly what to do, when to stand, when to sit, etc.; introduced me to the pastor, Rev. Philip Bryant; and then walked me over to the collation (food, drink, and fellowship) held after the church service in a house the church owns on Queen Street.  

Miss Edith and Miss Arla

I was home.  

Everything about that service spoke to me.  I can honestly say I felt (and still feel) like I had finally found the church service I've been seeking my whole life. 

I will miss my church so much when I retire and move away.  Hopefully I will be able to come back and visit at times.  I love my church.  The people there are just the best.  

I sat with Miss Edith and Miss Arla the rest of that year...maybe longer.  They were always so good to me.

Miss Edith lived to be 97 years old and was a faithful church member until the very end of her days.  

Miss Arla sold her house and moved away a few years ago.  (I can understand that.  I'm about to do the same next year.)  I'm not sure where she is now, but I miss her and think of her often and hope she is well and happy.  

If you ever find yourself on the corner of Queen and Church Streets in lovely downtown Charleston, SC of a Sunday morning, be sure to visit the French Protestant Huguenot Church.  You will be glad you did. I know I am.