Our Many Blessings
My grandmother, Hilma Lee, was born in 1902. Her life was much different than mine is today. It was harder, much harder. She didn’t have indoor plumbing until she was 60 years old, and she learned to read under the glow of a candle or a coal oil lamp. As a little girl, she walked to the local school, store, and church. In the winter, snow would blow into the freezing cold Kentucky house through the slats in the floors. She handwashed clothes in a wash tub and hung them on outdoor lines until they dried in the warm summer sun. In heels, she was about five feet tall and was just a whisper of a woman. However, she had a steel rod in her back and cared deeply for her family despite her circumstances. According to our standards today, she was poor, but in her spirit, she was wealthy.
I remember going to her house for special Sundays and holidays. All my aunts, uncles, and cousins would gather in her tiny house (complete with outdoor plumbing) to celebrate and feast. She made homemade crescent rolls, carefully mixing the batter and rolling out the layers of dough. I can still see her tiny hands and smell the fresh goodness as it wafted through the house. She was best known for her desserts, and the most famous one was her coconut pie. No one ever came close to matching its rich taste, and I am convinced that it was a blue-ribbon winner. Several years later I learned that she made these pies before coconut was widely available. We see it today in bags at the grocery store, but not so in her day. She would purchase an actual coconut, split it open, and scrape the coconut from inside the shell. Now, that was love.
There are countless blessings that I am thankful for during this season. Nothing blesses me more than my personal relationship with the Lord and my family. And I am thankful for others who have gone before me and loved me through their service and sacrifice. As you enjoy your Thanksgiving, I pray that you will pause to thank God for your blessings. Some remain in our memory banks while others are still being made today. “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever!” (Psalm 107:1, ESV)