Family

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I remember summer vacations with my family very fondly. We would prepare for weeks, looking at brochures, Daddy mapping our route on a big fold-out map at the kitchen table. The anticipation was so great. We never went really far as we always traveled by car from our east Texas homeland. But just the thought of seeing new places and having fun everyday filled my heart with adventure!

We’d get up real early the morning of our departure and take off after family prayer time asking God to bless this trip and keep us safe.

Whether it was the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, the sandy coast of Galveston Island or Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, we always went with the anticipation of having a good time. And that we did. These are very precious memories to me.

Daddy and Mama loved the good ole U.S.A. and always took us to places that had a historical significance. Dad’s favorite thing to do while on vacation was to tour the local museums and military forts. How he loved the Alamo! I bet we went to the Alamo at least five times!

Another thing Daddy always made sure we did while on vacation was to visit a local church. Even on summer vacation, we never missed worship services on the Lord’s Day. As a child I sometimes resented that. I wanted to stay at the motel and take a swim in the pool or do something fun like visit an amusement park. I didn’t like going to a church where I didn’t know anybody, I was always a little shy. Now as an adult, I am so grateful he instilled those values in me.

I remember one trip in the summer of 1963 when our car broke down on the highway. I don’t remember where it was but we were in a heck of a mess, miles from any town. Finally a highway patrolman stopped and Dad asked him if he could radio in to send for a wrecker. We waited for hours before the wrecker ever showed up. Then we all crammed into the front seat with a smelly man who drove the wrecker. That vacation was cut short because the car repair bills ended up being more than Dad had saved up for the vacation. It took all the money he had to pay the repair shop and then some.

We were in a serious situation and I could see the worry on Mama and Daddy’s faces. How would we get back home? Where would we sleep tonight while waiting for the car to be fixed? Dad rented a cheap motel room, walked to the local grocery store for bologna and bread and to use the pay phone to call Uncle Claude to ask him to wire money to get us home. We were all very somber that night. This vacation turned out to be an adventure alright, but not a good one.

Just as we were about to bed down for the night, Dad picked up the Gideon’s Bible laying on the nightstand and flipped through it to find a Bible story to read to us. All of a sudden he stopped and looked up at Mama.

“Mama, look at this!” There in the book of Jeremiah was a crisp one-hundred dollar bill. Tears started rolling down his face. “I have prayed all day for God to be with us in this situation and He answered my prayers! Thank you, Jesus!”

The verses Daddy read to us are ones I have never forgotten and every time I read them, I think of that summer in 1963 when God was with us. It was Jeremiah 29:11-14 (KJV)

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.

Precious memories……..how they linger.

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