Grandmother was a heavy-set lady with a big smile and lots of hugs.  I looked forward to spending the night at her house. She always made me feel very special fixing my favorite meal of pork chops, canned biscuits and speckled-eyed gravy. When she would cook, wash dishes, wash clothes or hanging the clothes on the clothes line, she would whistle. You could go to her house anytime and she would be whistling an old hymn usually “We’ll work till Jesus comes” or “Further Along.”

When she wasn’t working, she sat in her rocking chair, the radio was tuned to a program called Back to the Bible. She would have crocheting cotton lace for a dresser scarf. When my mother, Mary, was a teenager, she would embroidery a dresser scarf or a doily while grandmother would make the lace to go around the edge of it. Most people don’t use those any more to decorate tables and back chairs. Before television, it was a good way to keep hands busy.

I can also remember my experience of sitting in one rocking chair, grandmother in the other and both of us crocheting. Of course, I was only doing a very simple chain stitch but I was working hard at it and enjoying every minute. All the while the Bible program was on the radio.

This is just a few of the memories about my grandmother, what I really wanted you to know was that she was a good Christian lady who God used to help me know more about Him. Now I don’t remember that she talked to me very much about God, but somehow, I knew she had some sort of a relationship with Him: she went to church every Sunday, she prayed at mealtime, she read her Bible, she listened to preachers on the radio. When she said her prayers at night, she did it silently and I was to say mine while she said hers. She must have had a lot more things to talk to God about because I was finished way before she was.

Grandmother did tell me that she didn’t always go to church. She said when my mother was about 10 years old, she would go by herself to a small church just down the street from their house. My mother loved to play the piano and when there wasn’t anyone to play for the service, they would ask her to play. One Sunday my grandmother went with her to church. She told me that at that service that day, she made the decision to follow Christ. She also told me before she became a Christian, she had not gone to church. In fact, drank, played cards and had no interest in God.

When she was 19 years old, she married my grandfather of 40. He was a widow with 2 children ages 10 and 12. As a conductor on the railroad line between Little Rock and Ft. Smith, he would be in the caboose about the time my grandmother crossed the tracks on her way to school each morning. As the story goes, one day he got off the train in Morrilton and went to her grandparents’ house to ask her hand in marriage. Now, as a young girl, I didn’t ask as many questions then as I sure would like answered today. Grandmother had three children of her own but when the youngest, my mother, was 3, my grandfather passed away.

As I grew older, there was something about grandmother that made me curious about her relationship with God. I was raised in a home where we were taken to church every Sunday as a family, we said the blessing at meals and most times dad read the Bible before bedtime. But I just couldn’t put my finger on what I saw in my grandmother and what I saw in my own family’s experiences. Somehow, I wanted more than the routine of church atmosphere.

At the age of 16, I lost my grandmother and ended up with the tasks of going through her personal items. This was a pretty hard job for a teenager, but I found so many interesting things. I found a few little notepads that she had used for Bible notes. I found some notepads she had used as a journal and I found a note she had left to all of her children. That particular note stated she was hoping and praying that each of them would become Christians to which she left scriptures to lead them to know how to be saved. To my knowledge all of her children professed to be a Christian. One son became a radio preacher with a daughter and granddaughters that sang gospel music professionally.

As an adult Christian, I realize that what I was seeing in my grandmother was a personal relationship with God. God’s spirit in her was a witness to me in such a way that I wanted more out of my church life than sitting on the church pew. I continued reading my Bible, attending church and many years later after my own salvation experience, the decision was made to follow Him in all my ways. After 40 years in church work and ministry, I can pass along a word of truth. God is faithful. The adventures He has taken me on are journeys I could never have imagined. My grandmother’s quiet witness started me down that path. I pray as I know that you do to pass along to the next generation, God’s goodness and faithfulness.

“Farther Along” (Stamps-Baxter_Music_Company)

Tempted and tried we’re oft made to wonder
Why it should be thus all the day long
While there are others living about us
Never molested though in the wrong.
Tempted and tried, how often we question,
Why we must suffer year after year
Being accused by those of our loved ones
E’vn though we walk in God’s holy fear
When we see Jesus coming in glory
When he comes from his home in the sky
Then we shall meet him in that bright mansion
We’ll understand it all by and by

Chorus:
Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
Cheer up my brother live in the Son shine
We’ll understand it all by and by