“I thank God, whom I serve
from my forefathers ... .”
2 Timothy 1:3
“When I call to remembrance the
unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt
first in thy grandmother.”
2 Timothy 1:5
My grandmother was navigating between the front door onto the porch and the screen door leading outside, holding on to two metal chairs. I should have helped her. She was quite a sight, and the clamor of the chairs against the red tile of the front porch added the dimension of sound to the situation. Nothing was deterring her from her purpose, which on that day was to sit with me in the morning sunshine and have a Bible reading. I could think of better ways to spend my summer vacation. The rest of the family had gone on a picnic, but my asthma kept me back at my grandmother’s house under her care.
“Now sit with your back to the warm sunshine. It may break up some of the congestion in your chest,” she said. It didn’t seem to matter to her that she was now facing the sun and shielding her eyes to read from her Precious Book.
Why I remember that we read from Ephesians that morning, I do not know. I was not familiar enough with a Bible to know if Ephesians was part of the Bible. But if my grandmother said it was, it was. To me, she was the embodiment of a faithful Christian. The reading we had is a bit vague in my mind. I do remember that she spoke about all believers composing the body of Christ. My childish impression was that I did not want to be part of a body; I wanted to be a complete body. But, if I could only be part of a body, I wanted to be an eye. At that point in my existence, spiritual applications were lost on me. Yet later, the first time I walked through the doors of a small meeting room and observed the remembrance of the Lord, a light ignited in my head and in my heart and I knew that my grandmother had been right that morning long before. “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days” (Eccl. 11:11Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. (Ecclesiastes 11:1)).