“Rare and beautiful treasures . . .”
My grandfather passed away on Thanksgiving several years ago. My grandmother had passed eight years before that, and any deep cleaning and vigilance to the flood of paperwork that can enter one’s home had given way to more critical things. Insulin shots, home oxygen, and eventually 24-hour care became the focus. Papers and dust had accumulated, and it was time to clean out their home.
When my grandfather purchased the home in 1984, it had recently endured a house fire. He was a contractor and liked a good bargain. He had the resources and skills to fix it, so he did. I was 7 at the time, and it was the largest house I had ever been in. To me, it was sprawling! It went on forever with its four bedrooms, sunroom, dining room, and sunken living room. There was an abundance of play spaces and closets to hide in, and my grandparents gave us the freedom to do so. I have so many wonderful memories in that home. Years later, after my grandfather’s death, the three children, and their children, had each made a sweep through to take what was meaningful to them. There wasn’t anything of monetary value left—just some worn furniture, tired pots and pans, old clothes, and all those papers. When my dad was ready to begin the process of cleaning, I flew up from Houston to help. The main hunt was for the property deed. But I was hoping to find other treasures that possibly had been missed.
The roll-top desk in the master bedroom, with papers spewing out, seemed like the place to start. My dad hastily started sorting across the top and I dove into the drawers. In the top left drawer, I found numerous newspaper articles that Grandma had saved. My dad and grandfather had a construction company for 40 years. Every time they were honored in the local paper for the opening of a new building, or by the chamber of commerce, she had saved the article. I read a few and set them aside. Lower in the drawer I found a stack of yellowed letters. The postmark date was from the 1940s and the return address was a Navy base in California. I realized they were from my grandmother’s twin brother, sent to her while he was on a ship during WW2. I opened one and then set the letters aside to savor on my plane ride home.
Under the letters, I found a bulging envelope from Home Life Magazine, addressed to my grandmother. It was postmarked February 10, 1978. As I opened it, I saw a polite rejection letter, in addition to the article my grandmother had written. She had submitted her story---about how she came to know Jesus, and about her experience growing up poor in rural Oklahoma. She wrote about her family, and the little school she went to. She also talked about not living near a church while growing up, and how her mother introduced her to Jesus. The article wasn’t eloquent, or even cohesive. It was flavored with her sweet “Oklahoma twang,” and probably contained too many details of poor Oklahoma living for most people, like which way to face the outhouse and what material made the best toilet paper. But nothing could’ve meant more to me---holding her personal experiences there on those yellowed, typed pages. It was a window into a life so different than mine. I know nothing experientially of her poverty or her lack of education. I wasn’t the ninth child born to aging parents. I never slept outside in the Oklahoma heat because it was better than inside still air of the white-frame house they lived in. I don’t live so far from a church that I am unable to go. I haven’t dealt with most of the daily challenges or anxieties that caused her hardship. But I see how God pursued her and drew her to Himself. And I see that I live in the wake of God’s faithfulness to her, and her responsiveness to Him. My life is greatly affected by that.
I’ll never know what prompted my grandmother to type out that story and submit it. Was it a dream that she had to write? Did she feel it was an act of obedience? I don’t know. Knowing how timid and quiet she was, I have to believe that it took some effort to gather up the courage to do it, the same way her granddaughter is mustering the courage to share my own words 45 years later. She may have tucked that story away, with the companion rejection letter wrapped around it, disappointed and heavy-hearted. I’m so glad she tucked it in the drawer instead of discarding it. I don’t know if anyone’s eyes ever read it besides mine and the editor at Home Life in 1978. Finding that story fueled my courage to begin writing a few years ago, and to be bolder in sharing my faith. My heart is full of gratitude to see His kindness to my family and the legacy of faith that began in her. “By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.” Proverbs 24:3-4. What a beautiful treasure that was . . .
