The Blessings of no Cable

      The best thing about giving up my cable is that I found four Seventh Day Adventist channels on my antennae.  I watch one of them first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and sometimes in between.  They have programs dealing with every aspect of life.  One of the items this morning was a report about research that demonstrates that nothing helps a child’s development more than teaching them to sing.  It was not a new idea to me.  I have always known that it is not reading or math that is fundamental; it’s music.

               But another item this morning really struck a chord, a sermon about the importance of finding rest in Christ.  In that I found the answer to a question that I have long pondered: how my parents managed to create such serenity in the lives of me and my seven brothers and sisters. 

My oldest brother Tillman used to say, “We were poor, but we didn’t know it.”  Well that was not exactly true for me.  I knew.  Other people had running water and electric lights.  They had lovely china and crystal.  My friends had their own bedrooms, carpeted and filled with many dolls and lots of toys.  My father farmed big in the years that were plagued by drought and infestations.  We lived on wild meat because we saved what cattle we raised for market.  After he gave up on farming and began following construction, we lived in a series of one or two bedroom houses, all piled together in a loving puddle like great big puppies, and yet we never felt as though life had dealt us a bad hand.  We never felt as though we deserved better.

This morning I understood why.  My parents were always able to find “Rest in Christ.”  No matter what happened, there was joy.  My parents moved 28 times during my father’s working years, and my mother never complained.  Before one of those moves, my father came home from work and said, “Well we have to pack up.  We’re moving to the Miller place.”  My mother, smiled and said, “Do I have time to finish my coffee first?”

They never focused on the negatives.  There was always a blessing behind every shadow.  When my father cut off all the fingers of his right hand in an accident with a saw, he didn’t despair.  The first thing he said was, “I can be so lucky.  I could have lost my whole hand.” Always a blessing.  Always “Rest in Christ.”  Oh, and by the way, our house was always filled with music.   We sang.  Oh my yes.  We sang.