“...For God sees not as man sees; for man
looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (I Sam. 16:7b). “Greater
love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends”
(John 15:13).
Hey Gang: I am 84
years of age and have not been back to the place of my youth for more than
sixty years but, in recent years, my memory bank keeps digging up the neat
memories that greatly impacted my life in those years deep in the Appalachian Mountains. They used to say we lived so far back in the
sticks they had to pump sunshine to us, and the hoot owls wore knapsacks.
In the back country of the Appalachian Mountains they
referred to their place of residence as living in a ‘hollow’ (known as ‘hollars’
to the hill folks). I lived in “Hunky
Hollar”. My entire life was wrapped up
around the three coal-miner families, who lived in our tiny community of
“Deane”.
I was far too young
to realize the hardships that the families of our community were going
through. Coal mining was a very hard
task- with pick and shovel the method of digging out the coal. It was the winding down period of the
depression but hand-to-mouth eating was still a way of life for the back -country
folks.
Since folks did not have money for what was called ‘the
finer things of life’, people were more wrapped up in people than they were in things. In other words, people really got to know
each other and deeply cared for one another.
Story telling was a wonderful was time and stories told of folks who had
passed through ‘Hunky Hollow’ over the years.
I don’t recall many of those stories but one has always
stuck. The ‘hollar’ next to where we
lived was called ‘Mesquite Hollar’ and the only resident who lived there was an
old man who was referred to, as you might guess, as “Old Man”. He was often the object of harassment on the
part of some the roughens from the other ‘hollars’. Their favorite was to throw stones up on the
“old Man’s” metal roof. Most of time the
only sign of life seen around the Old Man’s beat up cabin was smoke from the
chimney.
And then one day the chimney went cold. The hour glass had passed, ”Old Man” by. A man from the bank often visited the Old
Man. The question was why? He certainly
did not appear to have any reason to see a banker. After his death the banker visited the cabin
and in looking around one last time, he found a glob of very soiled papers
under the Old Man’s bed.
It turned out to be “Old Man’s” Bible and it was filled with
little pieces of paper that said things like: “Sally, leg surgery”, Harry,
glasses, Pete, teeth repair, Mary, college and many, many others. As he collected all the pieces of paper, the
banker remembered the many times that suddenly, when someone who was in dire
need of a visitation by a Good Samaritan, they would find a pearl of great
price under their door or in their mail box or a paid in full notice on a debt they
could not afford to pay.
The “Old Man’s” funeral wasn’t who believed in the great
commission to be much – probably no would come, but the word of “Old Man’s” pieces
of paper began to circulate through all the ‘hollars’. and on the morning of
the funeral people began to arrive. To
make the long story very short – they had to move the funeral to the local park
due to the massive number of folks who wanted to say thank you to the person
they never met, and many had never seen but lived the great commission and took
care of ‘the least of these’’ (Matthew
25:40).
There is a very special word in the Bible that I have taken
to heart. “The word is measure’. Luke used it right after he listed the
beatitudes. I have shared it with every
boy and family I have had the privilege to provide a shirt-tail to hang on to’. Tune into the next blog and let me share a
word that carries great power to those who want to be obedient to God and His
word.
Blessings,
Gramps
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