Violet Voices

The gift

By Barbara

I received it several years ago, but I haven’t opened the box my uncle sent to me before his death in 1993 in a long time. “I want you to have it,” he had told me. And, while I felt honored that he should think so, I didn’t appreciate it as much then as I do tonight.

When I received the box I was in my ‘running away from God’ phase. I knew I was His child, yet I was arrogant and insistent that my way was the only way. I struggled with giving myself over to Him totally. Finally, I gave up the struggle - turned my back on “religion” and walked away into a long, dark night without His light.

During a rough ten-year period of time, I played hard, convinced that I was having a great time. I ran with a rough crowd and began to drink, even though I knew that was the cause of my father’s demise.

And then I made a couple of visits to Arizona to see an aging uncle - brother to my deceased mother. He and their “baby” sister were my last ties to Mom. We shared a love of the written word - both of us were poets of sorts, and we wrote volumes for letters. He encouraged me to keep searching for the barbara I had buried inside of me.

Shortly before he died, he sent me his grandfather’s Bible. I thought of it as a nice gift, precious because it had been the family Bible for over a hundred years at that point. But I set it aside and pretty much forgot about it.

This week my aunt called me and we chatted about some family history. I wondered if the answers to some of her questions were in that box. When I arrived home from work I dug it out.

In doing so - I discovered something. Raised catholic to satisfy my father, I had never known the rich heritage I had in my ancestors. In this well-worn book I found that heritage. A rich family history lies within those pages - births, deaths, marriages have been written in, first, my great-grandfather’s hand, and then in my grandmother’s.

But more than that . . .

LIFE was found in those pages. On a flyleaf is penned: Matt. 1:21 followed by a paragraph hard to read because of badly faded ink and a loopy script. I can make out the words, though: “Jesus saves me every day. Jesus saves me every night. Jesus saves me all the day. In the darkness and the light. Jesus saves! O bless His name. Jesus saves me all the time.”

Dated July 9, 1870 the words are followed by an underlined phrase: “Praise the Lord!”

My heritage is a family that loved Jesus. I am blessed to follow in their footsteps now as I serve that same risen Lord and echo their thoughts . . . O bless His name. Jesus saves me all the time.

The The gift by Violet Voices, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Written By: barbara
Posted under: Women's Voices .  Email This Post