ON FAMILY ~ Faithful Roots...

Image courtesy Hannah @ Mama Whimsy

At the age of 45, writer Regina Brett wrote a column for the Cleveland Plain Dealer listing 45 lessons that life had taught her thus far. As a breast cancer survivor, many of those lessons were learned the hard way. Five years later she added five more lessons rounding her list up to 50 and turned her popular list into a book called God Never Blinks. I found her list to be entertaining, inspiring and thought provoking. I thought I would go through each of her lessons learned and write about how that lesson has or has not come up in my own life, now that I am over 40 and feel old enough to have finally learned something.

"Read the psalms no matter what your faith, they cover every human emotion."

~ LESSON #38

I must first preface my thoughts on the above by saying that I recently realized, after 45 "50 Lessons" posts, that the chain letter of this list that I was working off of was quite inaccurate in the order of Ms. Brett's actual list. I went back and corrected all of my previous entries to match the correct Lesson number. Which is why you find me covering Lesson #38 just now. You will find the remaining lessons to be in random order. For myself, who values accuracy and proper quotation, this is annoying. For you, it shouldn't make any difference - the lessons and my thoughts are in the end, the point - not their order of appearance.)

My grandmother was a woman of strong faith. Both of my grandmothers were, in fact. I'm not sure if their devotion skipped some generations or what exactly, but my parents, and myself as a result, are not big churchgoers. My religious teachings essentially ended when I entered high school - probably a time they would have provided a lot of good moral lessons that I otherwise ignored altogether ;0) I always enjoyed church and the bible stories that were imparted to me as a child. As an adult, I decided to pick up my Bible and read through it, rather than reading whatever modern fiction was on my radar at the time. I do love a good classic after all.

The trouble I had with my attempt at reading the Bible was that it felt like reading Shakespeare - the language threw up a roadblock to something I wasn't completely enthusiastic about to begin with. Truth be told, when I entered into more unfamiliar territory the farther along I went, I got lazy and gave up.

My grandmother didn't give up. At her funeral, the preacher read to us from her own Bible. It was clear that my grandmother's favorite book was indeed The Good Book. Her love, devotion and personal connection to the scriptures inside were evident by the margins filled with her personal notations and well worn, dog-eared pages.

My grandmother's religious practice may not have filtered down to me in the same way, but I did inherit her propensity to fill my beloved books with myself; scribbles, notations, markings and turned down pages.

I want to revisit my grandmother's favorite book. I wish that I had her own copy at my disposal to infuse my reading with her personality. I believe that my uncle has this prized possession, as he should. But I do have a lot of her personality already within me. In fact, both of my grandmothers' personalities thrive within me. They were headstrong, forward thinking, fiercely protective, and devoted. I come from excellent stock. And because headstrong is a polite way to describe someone who is stubborn, I have no excuse but to begin my goal again and forge ahead.

And who knows, perhaps I'll decorate my Bible with my personality as I read along, leaving something for my son to have when he's in need of some extra guidance.