Growing up on the farms "back in the day" was filled with it's ups and downs. I guess I didn't really see it that way at the time but hind sight is always 2020. As a Sharecropper's daughter life was good and difficult almost at the same second. Lots of work, little pay and the toils of never having your own we worked the farms of the owners and they gave us a shack to live in. This is the long and short of it. When the season was over and we had done all the hard work, we didn't get much and I remember my daddy looking up to the Lord and and saying, "well soon be planting time again". But God was with us and He always caused us to prosper. You see we were Christians and God was "with us".
My daddy was a great provider, we always had food, hogs, cows, chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys, goats and all the vegetables my daddy, the Farmer Extraordinaire could produce. It was the food and hard work I remembered most, the tobacco, the cotton and soybeans and corn as high as the sky(or so it seemed then). My mother was the anchor of the family, staying home and keeping things together while daddy and the children took care of the crops. She was sickly most of my young life, but God blessed her to care for her 10 children and 2 grandchildren she raised from birth. She would live 89 years, mama fell asleep in 2007.
I never really understood or appreciated all my mother did until I got married some 26 years ago. Preparing a meal for my family one day tears flooded from my eyes, looking back at what mama must have gone through, all those biscuits, all those grits, the fried chicken, the hog killing time...the caring and sewing and teaching and preaching and disciplining...not to mention daddy! haha...oh mama, what you went through! My life has been a Queen's Quarter compared to hers! What a woman, mother, wife and child of God. I admire her more now, life is just like that I guess. "Youth is wasted on the young"
I well remember the dinners, and especially the Sunday Spreads. My mother was a master cook, and we children would help sometimes, I became her "helper", and eventually the main cook of the household after my oldest sister left home.
I always remembered my daddy praying over the feast, daddy could really pray...we didn't need so much praying over the food. HA! Daddy prayed everywhere, at the church, at the hog pen, those hogs heard the best praying this side of heaven, at the tobacco barns, walking the fields...EVERYWHERE!
But at the dinner table he was very meticulous, you see he prayed for the President (in the Chair), the governor, the Mayor, everybody, the neighbors, the children of the community....and all we could do was just sorta try to keep our eyes closed. Oh the food on that table, the fried chicken from the yard, the steaks from the stall, the ham..of course, potato salad, the greens and beans..and the desserts. Yet daddy was still praying for all the chillins near and far, for the Pastor of the church, all the members and of course for the lost and wayward. And we waited, and the smells tempted our very resolve.
But finally he would say, "now Lord", we thank you for the hands that prepared this meal, he always remembered mama; thank you for the ones that helped, by this time we really began to get happy, haha. My daddy sometimes would pause and let mama say this, but usually he would say "LORD MAKE US TRUE AND THANKFUL FOR WHAT WE'RE ABOUT TO RECEIVE FOR THE NOURISHMENT OF THE BODY.....IN JESUS NAME. AMEN! For the nourishment of the body, food is for nourishing the body. It's important we learn this.
Hippocrates, the Father of Modern Medicine said " Let your food be your medicine and your medicine your food." I think he had something there, I know he did. As I launch my HEALTH MATTERS PAGE, come along with me as we talk health and wellness which we should all be excited about. Mama used to say "child if you ain't got your health, you ain't got nothing!" Lord make us true and thankful for what we are about to receive...FOR THE NOURISHMENT OF THE BODY. Amen and Blessings!
