Christian Living

---

HERITAGE OF A CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY

© September 14, 2007

Frances Loftiss Carroll


Humanly speaking this has been a challenging year for me. Spiritually speaking the Lord has propped me up and carried me through some of the most challenging days I've ever had. Personal sickness, loss of income, death of a spouse, health problems and mental anguish are a few of the problems that have come my way in 2007.

My son is a minister but don't think for one moment that we are any more spiritual than anyone else. We have our struggles, hardships, and times of testing and trying just like any other family. I've got two great Christian kids ( although they are both in their 30's now) and no mother could be more filled with joy with what God means to them and their spouses. I am blessed as their mother.

It all started at 5:30 am. One cold February morning when my phone rang. Answering it, my son's said, “Mom, it's not what you think. Dad's laying in a hospital in Nashville and is dying.” Before midnight, my former husband, of forty-one years was dead, his newly desired lifestyle and life was over and that was the end of that chapter in adventures of my life and his as man and wife.

That began a series of events this year which have found me struggling and growing in faith as never before. Hopefully I am a bit more mature and a bit wiser from my experiences this year. Today I am no longer considered “Mrs. Ray Carroll”, being a divorced woman, and now a widow, I have tried to identify myself to myself. The divorce nearly killed me inside...of course I knew the most important thing of all, I am a child of God and have been saved by Jesus Christ, but still in terms of the world I had to pull myself together and “realize” who I was. Ashamed of the disgrace and the circumstances of our divorce, knowing there was a second and a third, “Mrs. Ray Carroll” within the year and two months of our divorce, I struggled with who I was as a person. And, then the health issues came and brought added questions of who I am and what I am made of mentally, physically and spiritually.

One day as I was praying the thought came to me, “I'm Charles and Louise's daughter!” I'm still the same little girl that grew up at 3774 Leech Road, Memphis, Tennessee but now I'm grown. Although I'm 65 now, I'm their little girl, their youngest daughter and they taught me right from wrong so I should know who I am! They provided me with the basics of life and took care to rear me “not shame” the family name or them. They reminded me I was their daughter and they expected certain things of me. They told me too that Jesus expected certain things of me and I should follow Christ with all my heart. They told me about Jesus and they showed me the way to live striving to be a example of living for Jesus.

Many of you can identify with what I am about to say here, and for those of you who don't understand, I pray God will give you that understanding; who you and I are, in part a gift of the foundation you were given when you were young, be it good, bad or indifferent. We learn from those who gave us care and raised us within the framework of the family as they knew it. If we do not like something we were taught as we were growing up we have the change to change that as we mature as adults.

I'm humbled by being Charles and Louise's youngest child and am grateful for being raised in the outskirts of Memphis, Tennessee. I am grateful for their attempts to lead me in a way that would open me to seeking Christ. I thank God for the Christian community I was raised in and for the people of the Levi community who kept an eye on the children in that community. We knew who we belonged to in that community and we knew to behave well as whatever we did right or wrong would “get back” to our family. And, being the right kind of people reflected well on our parents and our upbringing.

Sometimes when we lose ourselves in times of trouble we have to figure out an identity and direction to understand who we are and where we are heading. When my ex-husband decided he wanted to “live life my way” and “have the things I want” and turned his back on his children, his grandchildren and his wife and entered into new relationships I lost my sense of direction for a little while. But God reminded me that I was still His and that I had a good, solid framework for the house He was building on the solid rock of Jesus Christ.

Remember who you are Christian, and live to please our Father God.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE