Can you believe it? You certainly don't hear about this very often, but I know a wonderful Christian lady, my mother - Mae Evelyn Lewis, who has lived in the same house for 67 years. I would tell you which of my brothers was just a few weeks old when Mom and Dad moved there, but that would give away his age. He looks much younger than that. :)
As I sat around the table with some of my other family and my Mom, we talked and laughed about old times and memories of Dad. He has been with Jesus for 34 years this April. While we were talking it struck me how blessed I am to have renewed relationship and loving fellowship with many of my extended family. I personally think we've come a long way to this "better place" as a family.
I give the glory to Jesus because He has pursued us, picked us up, forgiven us, taught us, taught us again, and simply produced His love in us and shown us how to give it away. Love is a great thing(the greatest thing if I remember correctly), but it is hard to consistently demonstrate.
Our sweet Mom has certainly tried to do that in greater and greater ways all her life. For a 97, almost 98, year old lady, I think she is amazing. She is happy and free not bitter and hardened as many expect "old people" to become. Her freedom and growth in love for God and for us are parts of the legacy she is passing to us.
I leave Kentucky today after celebrating my brother-in-law Sammy's birthday, finding out my only sister may have a spot of cancer on her pancreas (more tests to come), visiting with Carol's brother's family in Paducah, and learning more about my Mom than I knew before I came. I will pick up Carol and Jeanne in Lexington, KY on the way back home, and hopefully we'll get there before the big snow storm hits north Georgia.
I am more convinced after several conversations here with family, friends, and a timely email encouragement from a friend back in Cumming that the journey we are on with The Basic Idea Ministries is truly about as basic as it gets. Learning to love, to love again, to know how loved we are, you are, and "letting our roots grow deeply into the soil of God's love" forms the only worthy foundation on which to build our lives. I am so glad God IS love and that His love is clearly seen in the rising of the sun, the provisions to meet our needs....all of them, and the sure hope of being with Him forever by simple faith in a loving Savior, Jesus Christ, who truly came to offer Himself as my substitute on a Roman cross. He loves me and you and nothing can ever change that truth.
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