A Blessing

The Hebardville Methodist Church on the edge of Waycross, Georgia is the first church I can remember worshipping on a regular basis as a boy.  It is also the church where I was baptized at age nine by a pastor who would later marry my mother.  In those years which go back to the mid 1950's the church bought new pews and my mother somehow managed to put together enough money to buy one in memory of my father.  It became my pew.  I sat on no other even though back then it was a front row pew.    

I wrote all about this memory in a previous blog and then sent it to the current pastor.  I wanted him to know there was someone out there who remembered the church and counted it as a part of their spiritual heritage.  This afternoon he sent me a picture of the pew.  Actually, he sent me a picture of the end of the pew which still had the memorial marker bearing my Daddy's name.  It touched my heart in a deep place to know it was still there and to know that people still gathered there on Sunday and sat on that pew to hear the Word of God.  I wish my mother were still alive so I could share the news with her.     

All of us have memories of churches from the past.  And many of us have left memorial gifts behind as we left and went to other places.  Some of them have disappeared, but some are still being used as instruments of service to God.  And, such is the nature of the memorial gifts given to the church to remember our loved ones and to glorify God.  They are gifts.  They become holy gifts because they are touched by the consecrating prayer of the church that receives them.  And whether they are still visible or invisible they are a part of the church's legacy of serving the Christ.  They have blessed us in the giving and they have blessed others as they have been used for the glory of God.