Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: GIANTS (10/22/20)
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TITLE: Battered, Tattered and Note-Filled | Previous Challenge Entry
By Corinne Smelker
10/28/20 -
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After the death of her second husband (the first one had also died), she had to go out to work in order to support two children. The 1950s didn’t provide much in the way of employment for a woman who had served in the war effort, but did have not many skills, other than cleaning. So that is what she did, she ‘char’d’ for families all over the smarter parts of London.
Those long hours travelling by bus weren’t wasted however. She was a voracious reader and everything was grist to her mill. But her favourite book, one that went everywhere with her was her Bible. When she wasn’t reading it, it would be tucked for safekeeping in her handbag until she arrived back to her very humble ‘two-up, two-down’ terrace house in the east end of London.
Once a week, she’d heat the kettle, pull out her iron bath and take a soak. She had a ‘guzunder’ in her bedroom, in other words, a chamber pot as she had no indoor bathroom. The house was finally updated in the 1990s and for the first time indoor ablutions were added.
She never attained more than a couple of O levels in school as she was ‘just a girl’. But her natural curiosity and intelligence shone through every time I spoke to her. She was a fount of both knowledge and wisdom. But her greatest passion was prayer and standing on God’s promises.
Once she came to visit us and through circumstances beyond anyone’s control, she landed up living with us for six months, often confined to her room. Sometimes I’d stand outside her door and listen as I would hear her praying. My parents never prayed. In fact, they didn’t even have a Bible in the house. Both of my parents had walked away from the Christian faith soon after their marriage, never darkening the door of a church again. I was fascinated by my grandmother, this woman who did not care what my parents thought, who prayed daily for them; and who read her Bible to me every day she lived with us.
When she was finally well enough to fly back home she called me into her room. “I want to give you something,” she said, and handed me her battered, tattered, note-filled Bible.
“Nanny, I can’t take this. It’s yours,” I exclaimed.
Those cornflower blue eyes pierced into me, “Take it. I know that God has a plan for you and you need to read His Word to know what it is.”
The absolute certainty and utter belief she had about me was thrilling. God wanted me?
That was the last time I saw my nanny alive. We wrote of course, and I told her about high school and then my university exploits. In 1989 she fell gravely ill and my father flew out to be with her and his sister. They were there for her final breath.
My nanny weighed 90lbs soaking wet, and maybe stood 5 feet tall if she cheated, but to me she was a giant. A giant of faith, a giant of prayer, a giant in teaching me that through Christ I can do all things. Giants come in all sizes.
And I still have that Bible, battered, tattered and note-filled.
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And as a 5 ft, blue-eyed grandmother facing the same challenge, I find it very encouraging. Thank you for this!