Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Light and Dark (05/21/09)
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TITLE: Ben Franklin and My Granny | Previous Challenge Entry
By LINDA GERMAIN
05/28/09 -
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Her simple theory was this: if it’s dark we go to bed--if it’s light, we get up. On summer days that promised to burn skin and scorch grass, her feet hit the floor just before the sun oozed over the horizon. She could hardly wait to wrap herself in the relative cool of her garden, pulling weeds or picking beans or watering something. She often said that was her favorite time of peace and quiet and of talking with the Lord. In the winter, she made some slight adjustments in her work .Gardening took a back seat for a few months, but still she was early to rise to get a jump start on her day.
I can still remember hearing the creak of her old bedsprings as she tried to make her way without waking anyone else in the house. In retrospect, I would give anything to go back there and get up with her, instead of thinking it was too early. She had a firm grasp on an important truth.
The standard by which she measured most everything in her life fell into the two camps of light and darkness. She would tell us, “If you aren’t for the Lord, you must be against Him.” The other immovable belief that we often challenged with our own curious and sometimes careless behavior was, “Everything is either of God or of Satan.”
She used the Bible as her compass and guide book. It was, she reminded us over and over, a lamp unto her feet. “It is a light in a dark world…don’t dismiss it so easily or you will stumble and lose your way.” How right she was.
As much as all her seven children and many grandchildren adored her, if I could have her back, I would refuse. For her to witness the decadence and decay since she passed to the arms of Jesus would break my heart. She would not understand why there is so much noise…all the time…in every place. The idea that every ear is stuck to a tiny telephone would puzzle her. I can almost hear her say, “But how can you listen to the Lord when He has something to say to you? Does he have to text you, or leave a voice mail?”
She certainly would not understand the new definitions of marriage and all sides of the life and death questions. The idea that couples would be proud to have their children first and then wed later, or not at all, would have been a shock from which she would never recover.
I would be embarrassed for her to see the immodesty and ungodliness of so many women, and the blatant disregard for respectable behavior in way too many men. She would probably stay on her knees day and night. The remorse in her heart at witnessing the corrosion of society and loss of God in our narsasistic culture would be more than I could bear to see.
Meantime, when loving memories of her flit across my mind, I smile at how incredibly smart she was. She had the secret to managing life here until we can step through the veil to there. It was so beautifully simple: Turn off the noise and get thee to bed to rest when it’s dark; wake up at first light when you hear the rooster, and get busy before it gets too hot.
Sounds like a plan worth trying.
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