God's Do's and Don'ts For Eternal Life

The four-room house had a real shingle roof on it. The two-room shack had a tin roof on it, and when it rained it made a loud sound that sounded like drums.

I remember lying in bed and watching the stars through the holes made by nails in the tin. There were no ceilings, just rafters running across for the ceilings. Sometimes I would see rats running across the rafters.

In the earlier days my father worked as a porter on a train, and he was gone quite a bit. So it was me and my mother and my brothers and sisters there alone.

We had to cut and pack wood for our cooking and heating stoves. We also had to pack water from a well more than a mile away. My two brothers, my oldest sister and myself had to do work that was meant for grownups. We had to grow up early in our lives.

Outside of picking cotton, we would pick pecans to help buy food and to buy holiday gifts for each other. Our Christmas tree was cut from the forest, and our decorations were hand made by each one of us.

We had to stick together to make it, because outside of my mother’s parents helping us, it seemed like we had no one else other than our mother. Our dad drank a lot, and most of the time he was no help at all.

But we knew there was someone else watching over us, without our mother telling us. My mother often told us how the Lord was watching over us and keeping us safe.

There were days, even at a young age I knew God had to be watching over us. Sometimes we would get down to our last crumb. My mother would tell us the Lord will make a way, and he would, always.

My grandfather on my mother’s side of the family would come riding across the field on his horse and he would always have a sack of groceries tied up in a burlap sack. Whenever one of our birthdays would come, my grandmother would fix a large home made jelly cake with home made jelly for the frosting.

I knew then the Lord used my grandparents on my mother’s side of the family to help watch over us.

The best Christmas I ever had was at my grandparents’ home. There would always be enough to eat, Christmas presents, everybody laughing, having a good time, and thanking the Lord for the blessings they had received.

My grandparents have passed on. So have some of the other relatives and friends of my grandparents. But I will never forget those times. I am glad it was instilled in me to know my personal Lord and Savior. I am glad to have my mother, and to have had my grandparents in my life.

If I had not had the people in my life, I may have had a career behind bars. I may have been selling or using drugs and destroying lives. Because God used the people in my life and my brothers’ and sisters’ lives, most of us are good, decent human beings who love people and most of all, love God.

We are not perfect, not any of us, God says in the Book of Romans, Chapter 3 Verse 23, for all of us have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. So when you go to church every time the doors open and you start thinking you are better than someone that is not church a lot, think about this, and if you are one of those Christians who just read the Bible and not understand or remember what you read. Remember what the Lord says. Study his word, so that you remember and tell others of My word.