Kathy’s musings
The Lord Has Always Been Faithful
My grandmother—my mother’s mother—was born Martha Alice Hamilton…named Martha after one aunt and Alice after another. Grandma’s parents, John Hoyle and Melissa Catherine Hamilton. John and Melissa were married quite young—he was 19 and she was 16 when they married in 1876. Grandma was the fifth of eight children born to the Hamiltons. The family made their home in rural Tennessee, surrounded by the beautiful Smoky Mountains, where John was a country doctor. The life of a doctor was exhausting in those days, and the pay was undependable—sometimes in small amounts of cash, often in garden produce and gifts of meat and eggs from families too poor to pay any other way.
From the East to the West
A number of years ago I took my elderly mother to her father’s family reunion, in far northwest Iowa. Really far northwest Iowa. Like, the corner of Iowa that is almost Minnesota and not quite South Dakota. It was a long drive from my home in St. Louis—following the Mississippi River for a time, and then heading west across Iowa, following my mother’s directions. Mom never liked traveling on the interstates, so we were on this state highway and that county road. It was not the direct route at all, but each turn we took was filled with memories for her from making this drive over the years with Dad driving instead of me.
An Ancestry of Faith
Several years ago, I took my elderly mother on a road trip to a family reunion. I learned a lot during those four days of travel with her—about my mother, and about myself—but also about my heritage—my heritage through generations of believing mothers.
Come Down Easy
Come down easy—
Come down easy, dear soul
Into the place prepared for you.
Come down easy,
Come down easy, dear soul,
Into the rest you need,
The place prepared for you,
Oh, come down easy.
Hold Me Father, Hold Me Fast
Hold me, Father, hold me fast.
Hold me so I cannot fall.
Be my stay, my all-in-all.
Hold me, Father, hold me fast.
Resting in a Sovereign and Loving God
I listened today to a very fine sermon on the sovereignty of God, and I was reminded how dear this truth is to me—that we can trust a God who is both sovereign and loving. He writes a long story, our God does—a story beginning in Genesis and ending when Christ returns—a story of redemption of His beloved children, a story that unfolds across time and oceans and generations.