(i am from)

Sue and some others have done a personal history exercise on their blogs... It is sort of a meme. I found it interesting to recall the places I am from and pare it down to a readable post. This one could go on and on..but that version is for my journal. Here you go...

I Am From

*I am a preacher’s kid from a small southern Ohio town near the Kentucky line, an old steel mill town in western Pennsylvania, and a little village in western New York.
*I am from many generations of Baptists in old Baptist churches with pews without cushions, revival services in the hot summer, and fans on sticks from the local funeral home...poked into the hymnal racks.
…from Sunday School, church, Sunday night and Wednesday night services, altar calls and singing all the verses of Just As I Am.
*I am from church parsonages banked by golden yellow forsythia bushes and large sheltering trees with a room always ready for visiting pastors or missionaries…
…from front porches with swings and gliders and talking to the neighbors till dusk.
*I am from clothes hung out on the line to dry, back yard vegetable gardens with lots of bright dahlias and Kentucky wonder beans…koolaid in a Tupperware pitcher or frozen into popsicles for a summertime treat.
*I am from full skirted dresses with starchy slips, white gloves and ankle socks and pin-curly-hair topped by an ill fitting white hat for Easter Sunday.
*I am from Mimi’s pot roast and cinnamon-sugared snickerdoodles in the brown cookie jar…
…Dad’s famous meatballs and Grandma Vista’s big ole biscuits and sweet tea.
*I am from “pretty is as pretty does”, “stand up straight”, and “only what’s done for Christ will last”.
*I am from three channels on a B&W television, Captain Kangaroo mornings, then watching old movies, My Three Sons and Beverly Hillbillies… seated in the rocking chair….my leg slung over the side arm.
*I am from a time before video games…a time when kids climbed trees, built forts, played ball and spud and tag and jumped rope and played jacks and hopscotch. I am from skates with a key and a bike with big tires and plastic streamers on the handlebars… …a bike that you did NOT want to fall from.
OUCH!
*I am from piano lessons and cello lessons..and a family of music lovers.
*I am from marriage at nineteen to the only boy I ever dated after four years of “going steady”.

*I am from a time past..and things have changed.

One thing never changes.
I am
A sinner saved by grace alone…
through faith alone…
in Christ alone.

This is where I am from.