Saturday, November 10, 2012

Psalm Challenge 79

Psalm Challenge 79

Thanks to Daily Athens for hosting the Psalm Challenge
Am attempting to be more disciplined about participating and posting according to
Mediterranean time

Daily Athens...Psalm Challenge

Psalm 79

Again I find myself at the graveyard of my ancestors,
Only a generation away
Still a forever lost opportunity,
They died at about the time I was born
My Grandfather died 28 Years before I was born.
I wanted to sit them all down,
What was life like then?
What did you sacrifice?
How was your faith tested?
I knew my Mother's sacrifices,
although,
even her,
Sometimes mysterious,
what did she give up?
How was her faith tested?
I remember a book she wrote in during WW 2. It held men's names,
Later I realized, they were boy's names, boys whose names she met at the USO
in St. Louis., the big city just north of Fort Leonard Wood.
Many of the boys names were crossed off.
I knew that meant they died,
Who of them might have died clutching a photo of
sweet Betsy?
I read Psalm 79.
My mother's words again to me,
Do not die without faith,
Trust me she said.
Her mother, Fanny, died without faith, she said.
The band song, The Weight, in my head again,
"Take a load off Fanny."

Mom said Fanny was having a heart attack, dying.
She was terrified without faith.
So take it from my ancestors, even if your days look dim,
Have Faith,
Mom always knew best.
 

6 comments:

  1. Thank you very much for your moving participation and this reminder to keep ones faith alive.

    Please have a good Sunday ahead.

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  2. Like Robert's post you have also made a link with Remembrance Day. I do enjoy your entries in the challenge.

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  3. This is very touching and very convincing.

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  4. I like the way you have woven your personal story into this today. Yes, have faith!

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  5. That is such a good illustration for the theme of the inheritance developped in that psalm... Well done.

    http://lunedemaledaumon.blogspot.fr/2012/11/psalmchallenge-79.html

    and for last week (I'm sorry I was travelling, so I couldn't participate) :

    http://lunedemaledaumon.blogspot.fr/2012/11/psalmchallenge-78.html

    Have a nice week !

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  6. Veteran's Day,US.Have enjoyed participating in the challenge and the world wide entries which show the depth of the scriptures. notes:This story came to me as I wanted to share Mom's test of faith both in WW2 and the feeling I had as she shared stories with me like the one about her Mom. Another was when my Bro went to Vietnam and Mom got out the knitting pattern from the cedar chest. It was for a 1940 something army approved army olive pullover vest.She knit them back then. I watched her make my Bro's in time for the monsoon season.WW 2 and Vietnam has a lot of significance with such losses of human life, both of the soldiers and civilian victims, senseless slaughter, war on cities, escalation of scary bombs,ethnic cleansing.It is natural to look for faith in all those losses.I also thought of tending a dying woman in ICU. She did not want to die because her son was an atheist. I tried to reassure her, I said, "Don't worry, they all turn at the end." which I spoke spontaneously and with conviction. I had tended many alone and dying people. Her worries were painful to her. I wish her son had known what his faithlessnes did to the woman who gave him life and liberty to call himself Godless. Thanks for all the kind comments.mary

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