A Tribute to the Legacy

One week ago, I was chatting with my friend about all sorts of things.  We talked about our kids, our hobbies, and our grandparents.  She recalled a time when she had talked with her grandmother about passing on to Heaven.  Memaw was ready, but her spirit couldn't turn loose of her body.  Monday after lunch, I started getting text messages, phone calls, and voice mails from several friends.  When I finally checked my phone, I realized that my friends were trying to let me know that Memaw finally let go.  The text message said, "Memaw is gone."  Let me tell you her story as I knew Memaw.

Today would have been her 92nd birthday.  She rejoined Pepaw in Heaven on their 74th anniversary.  She worked in food services in the local school district, taught Sunday School at church, and loved quilting and gardening.  She also loved her family and the Lord.

I was in first grade when I met her and became friends with her granddaughter, Karen.  In that Sunday School class, every student learned the books of the New Testament to a little tune.  I still sing it in my head when I'm flipping through my Bible looking for a passage.  I grew up hanging out with her grandchildren.  I knew Memaw and Pepaw through their grandchildren.  So many of my memories growing up are attached to that family: slumber parties, Sunday School, summer camp, mission trips, weddings, funerals, riding bicycles, and on and on.  I even pestered Memaw enough that I eventually got Christmas stockings at her house.  In fact so did my husband and kids.  The family counted me as the "other" granddaughter.  I don't just remember Memaw.  I remember her family.  She is a part of a bigger picture.  She is part of a family and a legacy that she helped build with a foundation of values and a love for the Lord.

Part of the foundation that Memaw built for her family was faith in God.  I loved how at the funeral that the minister pointed out that Memaw made it her business to make sure that everyone she knew had a relationship with the Lord.  He told a story about how she asked him to come speak to her quilting circle about salvation.  Even in her retired years, she was not a retired Christian!

So in honor of Memaw, I want you to make sure that you know how to have a saving faith in God.  He desires that we should all know Him and have a relationship with Him.  He made us and we need to get to know our Maker.  The problem is that we all sin.  Sin is when we do things that God did not design us to do and does not want us to do because those things are harmful to us.  Whatever those things are, they hurt our relationship with Him.  Just like little kids, there are consequences for those actions, but God sent his own Son to take care of that for us by paying the ultimate price with His life.  If we will accept what God's Son, Jesus, did for us, then we can come back into a right relationship with Him.

Luke 19:10 says, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the World, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."
John 3:18 says, "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe is judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."
John 10:10 says, "I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly."
Acts 3:19 says, "Repent therefore and return, that your sins maybe wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord."
Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Romans 10:9-10 says, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."

Model T talking to Memaw

All of the grandkids and spouses.  Memaw in the middle.  

If you have personal questions about your relationship with God, please let me know how I can help you.