REFLECTIONS

Our Stories

There is a powerful story buried beneath a tombstone in a small cemetery at a place called Allen’s Chapel. Few have ever heard it; even fewer likely found meaning in it. But the story of Lemuel and “Bettie” is meaningful to me.

Most of my great grandparents’ story I learned from newspaper clippings, notes of remembrance by family members and a few memories Bettie wrote herself. Here is one of them:

“I remember so well that little log schoolhouse with spit-log benches, the girls seated on one side of the house and the boys on the other, all spelling their lessons out loud from the old blue back speller … A little girl of seven, I was thinking what an ugly bunch of boys when over toward the corner I saw the prettiest little brown-eyed, dark-haired, ruddy-cheek boy I ever saw. He looked across and smiled at me and I smiled back at him and then I knew I liked him and felt at home then because I had found a friend.”

Polly, one of her granddaughters, summarized the scene, “So little blonde Bettie Saunders fell in love with brunette Lemuel Ramsey her first day of school and never stopped.”

They married March 19, 1862, built a log cabin on a 40 acre farm that Bettie described, “no palace was ever more beautiful and our happiness knew no bounds and we did not forget the most important thing in building a Christian home—the family altar. The very first night in that dear little home Lem got the family Bible, read a chapter and he had prayer (and we had so much to be thankful for) and we tried to keep this practice up through all the years”

The story of Lem and Bettie is meaningful to me because the way they lived their lives formed a pathway into mine. My grandmother grew up under their roof, ate at their table, listened when her father read from the Bible, and prayed with him before the family altar. Jesus was their centerpiece. Later in her own way, my grandmother made a home for children of her own and lived by the principles instilled in her as a child—Jesus Christ as her centerpiece

Like Lem and Bettie, our lives tell our stories too. Each day we write a new episode. Though mostly edited from the story; the sum of them still composes the story of who we are and what we stand for. For our children, grandchildren, and others who know us well, our stories are woven into the fabric of their lives to live on in the fabric of those who follow them.

Our lives tell our stories. Lem and Bettie made Jesus the centerpiece of theirs.

 You are the light of the world,

Richard +

www.reflectingthesavior.org

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