If It Weren’t for the Women (Part 2)

Two weeks ago, I shared the stories of four women representing four different generations across four different branches of my mother’s family and pondered the goodness and grace of God that is evident in their lives. Today I’m moving over to my father’s side where we find even more inspiring women without whom I literally wouldn’t be here and see even more examples of God’s sovereign hand and sustaining grace.

Mary Jane Seagle Whitman Eanes

As I did last time, I’ll start with the woman furthest up the tree of whom I have a photograph, Mary Jane Seagle Whitman Eanes, my 3^rd-great-grandmother whose life was marked by cross-country travel and periods of deep loss. Mary was born in southwestern Virginia, and although her Civil War pension file states she lived in Virginia all her life, the record of her first marriage is in western North Carolina in 1857, and a few years later she, her husband, and her newborn daughter Florence are found living in Texas.[i] Her first husband became a casualty of the Civil War, and sometime between 1860 and 1865 (likely during or just after the war), Mary journeyed across the war-torn South from Texas back to Virginia.[ii] There, as a war widow in her late 20s or early 30s, she married my 3^rd-great-grandfather James Eanes and went on to have two sons with him, James Wilson and William Henry.[iii]

Mary became a widow for the second time in 1887 when her husband James died from Bright’s Disease, and she suffered grief once again when William Henry was injured in a lumber accident in 1901 and soon after died of tuberculosis.[iv] Her granddaughter, who remembered her as “a hard working poor old woman” who “knitted me a pair of wool stockings for Sunday,” recalled the time of injury: “Granny was out in the road crying and daddy [James Wilson] said, ‘He ain’t dead’. Granny said, ‘No, but he’s gonna die’.”[v] While we only know the names of three of Mary’s children, census records suggest that she gave birth to at least one, if not two, other children who also preceded her in death.[vi] As Mary aged, she lived with her surviving son (my great-great-grandfather) and his family before eventually moving to Tennessee with Florence where she stayed until her death in 1919, almost exactly a year after the end of World War I.[vii] Nearly one hundred years later, my parents and I would take a detour during one of our cross-Tennessee trips back East and find her grave, next to Florence’s, in Lenoir City, Tennessee.

Mollie Kirby Eanes with husband James Wilson and six of their nine children.

When Mary lived with her son’s family, the woman who would have helped oversee her care was her daughter-in-law Mollie/Molly Kirby Eanes, my great-great-grandmother. I’ve always felt a special connection to Mollie because we share a birthday week (perhaps day), and her daughter’s home, where she lived until her death in 1957, is the location of our Eanes family reunions.[viii] Mollie was born in the late 1860s or early 1870s in Virginia, the daughter of a Civil War veteran. Unlike her mother-in-law, Mollie did live her entire life in the same region of the state where she was born.[ix] After marrying James Wilson Eanes, also the child of a veteran, she gave birth to five sons and four daughters over the course of twenty-five years (1890-1915), and apart from two boys in a row, each birth alternated in gender. Remarkably, all nine children survived to adulthood, although seven years before her death Mollie suffered the traumatic grief of one son’s death on her own bed in their four-room house. The death was ruled a suicide but believed by the family to be murder.

As a sharecropper’s wife, Mollie worked hard to care for her family through several moves around southwestern Virginia, often rising to use her wood-burning stove for baking biscuits and cooking gravy to accompany the possum, groundhog, rabbit, or other meat that her husband had hunted and cooked that morning. A quiet but feisty woman who chewed snuff and took no flack, Mollie was known to “slowly say, ‘Nooow Jim’ to calm [her husband] down” when he got agitated over so-called “hypocrites” at the church where he was Sunday School Superintendent. Mollie passed her quiet nature and work ethic on to her children, involving them in gardening, drying, pickling, and otherwise preparing their food. She kept her children in line with firm discipline, and they solidly felt her love despite her not being “overly affectionate.” Her grandchildren loved her as well, referring to her as “Biggie Mommy” or “Biggie” as opposed to their own mother who was just “Mommy.”

Karolina [Volpez?] Kailing

Staying in the same generation but moving to another branch of my father’s family tree, we meet Karolina [Volpez?] Kailing. As you can tell by the brackets and question mark, I have yet to determine exactly what Karolina’s maiden name was and consequently don’t know the exact names of her parents, although I do have a photo of them. What I do know is that Karolina was the most recent woman in my family tree to immigrate to the United States, traveling from what is now Romania in 1907.[x] She was born in 1883 in Kissebes (again in what is now Romania) and was Hungarian (Magyar) by ethnicity and Catholic by religion.[xi]

By 1904 she was with the ethnically-German, religiously-Lutheran Samuel Kailing in another part of modern-day Romania where the two baptized their son Rudolph in the Protestant church.[xii] Two years later, another son was born, but tragically he died from pneumonia at five months old.[xiii] Three months after burying their infant son, Karolina was left with her surviving son as Samuel ventured ahead of her to America, leaving the mining community of Romania to work in the mines of West Virginia.[xiv] Seven months later, in November 1907, still less than a year after burying her son, Karolina left his grave behind, took three-year-old Rudolph, boarded the Carpathia (the ship that years later would rescue survivors from the Titanic), and made the three-week journey across the ocean to join Samuel.[xv]

Once in West Virginia, Karolina went on to have five more children with Samuel—three sons then two daughters, with one son (my great-grandfather Ernest) being named after his brother whose body lay buried in Europe. Karolina transitioned with Samuel as he left the mines for other pursuits and eventually opened the successful Kailing Grocery in McDowell County. She lived with her three unmarried children until her death in 1939, four months before Samuel’s.[xvi]

Beulah Mae Collette Kailing

Karolina only lived to be 55, but that was long enough to see her son Ernest marry a McDowell County girl, Beulah Mae Collette. Known to me as “Grandmother,” Beulah Mae was the great-grandmother whom I knew 2^nd-longest of the four, and my soft voice, slow eating, and middle name (Collette) come from her. I always remember her as being sweet and happy, with a snarky streak that would come out every once in a while. By her kind eyes, warm smile, and soft, joyous laugh, you’d never know all the trials she endured throughout her life.

Beulah’s story is like many others, characterized by a roller-coaster of joys and sorrows. She was born in 1915, the second of nine children, only eight of whom survived to adulthood.[xvii] When she was 14 years old, her father, Carrick Augustus Collette, died in a state hospital of pulmonary tuberculosis.[xviii] This loss, combined with the concurrent onset of the Great Depression likely meant she took on a greater load of responsibility helping her mother Bessie care for her younger siblings, the youngest of whom was only 4 at the time. At age 18, she was in a chapter of happiness as she married Ernest and gave birth to my grandmother within the year.[xix] Tragedy would soon strike again, though, when her second daughter was born prematurely and died after eleven hours.[xx] When her living daughter was eleven, Beulah found joy again at the birth of a third girl, and the family of four enjoyed life in the county in which all of them were born as they lived next to the railroad and above the Kailing Grocery that Ernest managed.

My "Grandmother"

The next landmark of her life mixed sorrow with joy. Shortly after finding out she was to be a grandmother, Beulah’s husband died at the age of 49 from a heart attack.[xxi] The birth of her grandson helped her through the grief, and after closing the family store, she moved to be closer to her daughter’s family and busied herself with earning her GED, being involved in her church, and caring for her mother as well as her daughter and grandsons after her son-in-law also passed away at a young age. Beulah’s life was blessed with friendships, too, including one with Frances Paulette Smith (remember her from Part 1?) whose granddaughter would go on to marry Beulah’s own grandson and later give birth to me!

Whether they lived and died in the same state, traveled halfway across the country and back, or journeyed to the other side of the world, these women with their unique stories and unique personalities remind us once again of the creativity of God and the power of His sustenance that is evidenced in their strength, perseverance, dedication, and love. He protected them, provided for them, carried them through overwhelming sorrows, and lavished them with undeserved joys, just as He does with you and me. And what about you? Can you trace the thread of grace through your own family’s story? It’s there for you to find, if only you’ll take the time to see it.      

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[i] “Alabama, Texas and Virginia, U.S., Confederate Pensions, 1884-1958,” database and images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1677/images/31867_B034435-00020?pId=524959 : accessed 17 March 2021); pension form no. 3 application of widow Mary J. Eanes, service of James Eanes (21^st Virginia Cavalry, Company K, Civil War); citing “Confederate Pension Rolls, Veterans, and Widows,” Collection CP-5_155, Roll 155, “Smyth County (surnames E-Si),” Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia. Ashe County, North Carolina, Marriage Register, 1853-1904, Clark S Whitman—Mary J Seagle, 9th December 1857; digital image, Ancestry.com, “North Carolina, U.S., Marriage Records, 1741-2011” (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/60548/images/42091_327586-00154?pId=13297351 : accessed 17 March 2021). 1860 U.S. Census, Hunt County, Texas, population schedule, Timber Creek, Precinct no. 2, p. 1 (penned), dwelling 3, family 3, C S Whitman family; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7667/images/4297440_00031?pId=35039212 : accessed 17 March 2021); citing Family History Library microfilm 805298 and NARA microfilm publication M653.

[ii] The fate of Mary’s first husband is mentioned in Eanes-Lineage-10June2007.doc by Greg Eanes.

[iii] Wythe County, Virginia, Marriage License, 1865, James Eanes—Mary Whitman, 24th October 1865; digital image [PDF], Ancestry.com, “Source Document-Marriage Certificate-James Eanes and Mary Whitman-4 Oct 1865 [sic]” shared by greanes 19 Nov 2020 (accessed 17 March 2021). Eanes-Lineage-10June2007.doc by Greg Eanes.

[iv] “Alabama, Texas and Virginia, U.S., Confederate Pensions, 1884-1958,” Mary J. Eanes, service of James Eanes. Eanes-Lineage-10June2007.doc by Greg Eanes.

[v] Eanes-Lineage-10June2007.doc by Greg Eanes.

[vi]1900 U.S. Census, Smyth County, Virginia, population schedule, Blue Spring Precinct, Enumeration District 87, p. 11A-B (penned), p. 155A-B (stamped), dwelling 177, family 179, James W Eanes family; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7602/images/4117934_00699?pId=72438073 ; https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7602/images/4117934_00700?pId=72438073 : accessed 17 March 2021); citing Family History Library microfilm 1241728 and NARA microfilm publication T623. 1910 U.S. Census, Smyth County, Virginia, population schedule, St. Clair, Enumeration District 93, p. 11 (penned), p. 217A (stamped), dwelling 163, family 163, James W Eanes family; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7884/images/4454881_00438?pId=180094674 : accessed 17 March 2021); citing Family History Library microfilm 1375662 and NARA microfilm publication T624.

[vii] Ibid. Tennessee State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, certificate of death no. 171 [stamped] (1919), Mary Eans; digital image, Ancestry.com, “Tennessee, U.S., Death Records, 1908-1965” (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2376/images/33113_257794-01119?pId=613904 : accessed 17 March 2021); citing Tennessee State Library and Archives, “Tennessee Death Records, 1908-1958,” microfilm roll 101.

[viii] Virginia Department of Health, certificate of death no. 22622 (1957), Mollie Kirby Eanes; Bureau of Vital Statistics, Richmond; digital image, Ancestry.com, “Virginia, U.S., Death Records, 1912-2014,” (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/9278/images/43006_172028004349_0151-00100?pId=2027519 : accessed 16 March 2021).

[ix] The remaining information and quotations about Mollie Kirby come from “James Wilson Eanes-1Nov2007.doc” written and sent to me by Greg Eanes based on his notes from several interviews with children and grandchildren of James Wilson and Molly Kirby Eanes.

[x] “New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957,” Line 3, Page 22, Karolina Kailing, Arrival 20 November 1907 on Carpathia; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7488/images/NYT715_1045-0040?pId=4005798616 ; https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7488/images/NYT715_1045-0041?pId=4005798616 : accessed 20 March 2021), citing NARA microfilm publication T715, 1897-1957.

[xi] Ibid. West Virginia State Department of Health, certificate of death no. 7920 (1939), Mrs. Samuel Kailing (Caroline); Division of Vital Statistics, Charleston; digital image, West Virginia Archives and History, West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History (http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=1046405&Type=Death : accessed 20 March 2021).

[xii] Petrosani, Hunedoara, Romania, Protestant (evangelisch) Baptism Register, 1892-1911, Rudolph Kailing, 3 May 1904; digital image, Ancestry.com, “Romania, Vital Records from Selected Regions, 1607-1914” (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/5412/images/44050_petros%5E09-00119?pId=991129 : accessed 4 January 2020).

[xiii] Petrosani, Hunedoara, Romania, Protestant (evangelisch) Baptism Register, 1892-1911, Ernst Kailing, 8 September 1906; digital image, Ancestry.com, “Romania, Vital Records from Selected Regions, 1607-1914”  (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/5412/images/44050_petros%5E09-00144?pId=991243 : accessed 6 Oct 2020). Petrosani, Hunedoara, Romania, Protestant (evangelisch) Death Register, 1892-1914, Ernst Kailing, 13 January 1907; digital image, Ancestry.com, “Romania, Vital Records from Selected Regions, 1607-1914” (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/5412/images/44050_petros%5E11-00042?pId=1026417 : accessed 21 December 2020).

[xiv] New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957; Samuel Keiling, Arrival 27 April 1907; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7488/images/NYT715_877-0076?pId=4041031225 : accessed 30 November 2020).

[xv] “New York, Passenger and Crew Lists […],” Karolina Kailing, Arrival 20 November 1907, Ancestry.com.

[xvi] West Virginia State Department of Health, certificate of death no. 7920 (1939), Mrs. Samuel Kailing (Caroline).

[xvii] McDowell County, West Virginia, Register of Births, 1915, Beulah Mae Collette, 16th June 1915 (p. 32); digital image, West Virginia Archives and History, West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History (http:/15/www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=2039213&Type=Birth : accessed 20 March 2021).

[xviii] West Virginia State Department of Health, certificate of death no. 16229 (1929), C. A. Collette; Division of Vital Statistics, Charleston; digital image, West Virginia Archives and History, West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History (http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=1047683&Type=Death : accessed 20 March 2021).

[xix] McDowell County, West Virginia, Marriage License, 1933, Ernest S Kailing—Beulah M Collette, 1^st August 1933; digital image, West Virginia Archives and History, West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History  (http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=11416774&Type=Marriage : accessed 20 March 2021).

[xx] West Virginia State Department of Health, certificate of death no. 3626 (1938), Baby Girl Kailing (Janice Earnestine Kailing); Division of Vital Statistics, Charleston; digital image, West Virginia Archives and History, West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History (http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=1299172&Type=Death : accessed 20 March 2021).

[xxi] West Virginia State Department of Health, certificate of death no. 012482 (1960), Ernest Samuel Kailing; Division of Vital Statistics, Charleston; digital image, West Virginia Archives and History, West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History (http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=1007616&Type=Death : accessed 20 March 2021).

If It Weren’t for the Women (Part 1)

March is Women’s History Month, and while I’m not typically fond of events that divide us humans into categories, I thought this would be a good time to write a crossover post (where my blog-writing meets my history/genealogy-educating from @time.tracing) about some women who are near and dear to my heart, even though most of them I’ve never met.

Yes, I’m talking about the women in my family tree. Women without whom, quite literally, I wouldn’t be here. Women who came from different parts of the country or the world, faced tremendous hardships, saw tremendous joy, and passed on legacies of hard work, determination, love, and faith.

I’d like to introduce you to some of those women today, not because I expect you to feel as deeply about them as I do, not even because I hope you’ll find them interesting, but because I hope through seeing their stories told collectively you will think about the women in your own family tree without whom you wouldn’t be here and will find cause to marvel at the goodness and grace of God that has preserved your family line and mine to the point where He chose to bring us on the scene by giving us life at this particular time in this particular place. So how about it? Are you ready to trace some time with me?

Catherine Yeagle Kuhl and Henry Kuhl*

The woman farthest back on my family tree of whom I have a photograph is Catherine Yeagle Kuhl, my fourth-great-grandmother. Based on what we’ve found so far, we think she was born in 1804 in the German region of Europe where she married and had children before immigrating to the United States in the 1830s and having a few more children by her husband. She lived some twenty years after immigrating but not long enough to see the tragedy that would befall her family during the Civil War (a tragedy I wrote about in a previous post). Though we don’t know much about her, her strength in traveling half a world away during the early 19^th century can be inferred, and from what we know of her husband, she must have had a fortitude of steel.

Esther Radle Jones and Vasa Bozarris Jones

Moving a generation closer to present, we meet a host of fascinating women, one of whom was Esther Radle Jones, one of my sixteen third-great-grandmothers. Esther was born around 1827 in Pennsylvania and by 1850 was a young bride living with her husband Vasa in her in-laws’ household in Illinois along with her sisters- and brothers-in-law. The closeness she had with her in-laws is evident from letters written by her father-in-law to her during the Civil War. While living in Illinois, Esther’s first two children, both girls, died before they reached the age of three, but that was only the beginning of the trials she would endure.

In 1864, Vasa joined the Union Army from their new home in Ohio and would spend essentially the entirety of his military service as a prisoner of war, being captured before even seeing battle. It would be at least a month and a half before Esther received word from him that he had been captured, and letters from her father-in-law in the interim reveal that she was struggling with worry but was encouraged to lean on her faith in God. When Vasa’s letter finally arrived, Esther read, “It is very uncertain when you will see or hear from me. You must do business entirely independent of me,” so she was left to raise her three surviving children on her own.

Esther would be reunited with her husband at war’s end, but not before suffering another great loss—the death of another child, this time an eighteen-month-old son, in early 1865. After the war, she would have another son (my great-great-grandfather) before moving with her family to a fourth state—West Virginia—where she would live out the rest of her days, passing on before reaching the age of 50. By moving to West Virginia, Esther and her family set the stage for many marriages throughout subsequent generations, all the way down to that of my parents.

Ballard Alvin Lewis and Stella May Perry Lewis

Among my eight great-great-grandmothers, the one that is most frequently on my mind is Stella May Perry Lewis. Born around 1885 in Boone County, West Virginia, Stella was one of thirteen children and had six children of her own after marrying at age eighteen. In 1920, seventeen years after her marriage, she seems to disappear from the documentary record and remains the greatest mystery in my family tree. Multiple family stories conflict, circumstantial evidence pops up in pieces, and theories abound from innocent to sinister but all sad.

Her date of death, cause of death, and place of burial (if she was buried) are as yet unknown, but her photograph continues to captivate me, and if it weren’t for her and her photo, I never would have been located by my third-cousin, whom I quickly found to be a kindred spirit. Our great-grandmothers, each of whom we knew, were two of Stella’s daughters, and we’re on a mission together to find out what happened to Stella for them, for their sons (our grandfathers), and for her. Although much about her life, and particularly her death, is shrouded in mystery, Stella’s story reminds me that nothing is a mystery to God. And while we may never know this side of eternity what became of her (though not for lack of trying!), we know that she was never hidden from the sight of God.

Frances Paulette Hamrick Smith and Bert Wayne Smith with their daughter

Of my four great-grandmothers, I was blessed to know three of them (I met the fourth, but have no memory of her), and Frances Paulette Hamrick Smith was the one I knew the longest. The second of seven children, only the middle of whom was a boy, Paulette (as most people knew her) was born in 1916 in Nicholas County, West Virginia. After the family moved to nearby Webster Springs, she spent time working/living with other families to help make ends meet, and she continued working in clothing, department, and grocery stores until she reached retirement. At eighteen she married, and she gave birth to her only child on her nineteenth birthday.

                           

Frances Paulette Hamrick Smith, mowing the lawn like she did into her 90s

Paulette moved around a lot throughout her life, even almost moving to Australia for her husband’s job, but that plan fell through, and they moved instead to Madison where her future son-in-law lived. She ended up residing in central and southern West Virginia her whole life, where her days were characterized by hard work and a talent-filled passion for sewing and gardening. She would often whip out a new outfit for her daughter to go out in on the weekends, and she seemed happiest when she was outdoors. As she had grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who affectionately called her “Gamma,” she would travel with them into the heart of the mountains back to Webster Springs to visit her sisters and her mother who lived to be 101 (yes, you read that right, and yes, I got to meet her). Living through the Great Depression, World War II, and the loss of her father, siblings, and husband later in life, Gamma saw a lot of hardship and grief, but her spunkiness, laughter, and work ethic stayed with her to the very end until a stroke sent her to Jesus at the age of 92.

My spunky Gamma

These are merely snapshots of four very full lives, lives that touched and were touched by others in countless ways. Each woman’s existence stands as a reminder to us of the mercy and faithfulness of God who so graciously created each of them in His image and sustained each of them for His glory. And yet these lives are only four among so many more that make up my heritage, and my heritage is only one among billions more. The breadth and depth of God’s sovereignty, creativity, and story-crafting is breathtaking, and if it weren’t for the women, our study of His world would be a lot less colorful.

All four of the women I introduced to you today are on my mother’s side, so stay tuned for next time to hear four more stories of women from my father’s line. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below—who is a woman from your own family tree that you find inspirational?

*Henry Kuhl Photo Credit: Lila Powers, "To Make an Example of Them," Orlando, West Virginia, June 18, 2011 (http://orlandostonesoup.blogspot.com/2011/06/to-make-example-of-them.html : accessed March 3, 2021).

Sitting with Slavery

There’s nothing quite like storytelling—whether written or pictorial—to give us cause to think deeply. Something about being confronted with the depiction of an event sears it into our brains by making us feel the emotions it involves. This was my experience while watching the first episode of The Long Song on PBS’s Masterpiece. A miniseries based on a novel about the end of slavery in Jamaica, the show conveys the horrible reality of slavery and racism with unexaggerated frankness.

Human beings literally being treated as animals, demeaned, grieved, abused in every possible way and the utter blindness among slave owners to the fact that there was anything at all wrong with this way of life—watching it was disturbing to the core. The episode wasn’t the first dramatization of slavery I had viewed, but it hit the hardest.

As with many other uncomfortable images, my first instinct was to try to block them out and think of something more pleasant, but something inside me made me stop and feel the discomfort for a while. Many times when I see fictional scenes that are disturbing, I can rationalize my way out of the unsettling feelings by thinking, “It’s just a story; that didn’t really happen.” But with The Long Song I couldn’t do that. Even though the particular people portrayed might be fictional, the situations that were dramatized would have been the real-life experience of countless human beings who found themselves enslaved and enslaving.

And I couldn’t help but wonder, with queasy stomach, if my slave-owning ancestors had thought of and talked to and touched the human beings they enslaved in the ways the characters in The Long Song did. This is a question I will likely never know the answer to, and if I did and the answer was “yes,” there would be absolutely nothing I could do to change it, just as there is absolutely nothing I can do to change the fact that some of my great-great-(etc.)-grandparents in Virginia bought and sold human beings as if they were animals. So why bother to think about it?

I think sitting in the discomfort for a moment is important for several reasons, but before we get into those, it seems important to mention what those reasons do not include. Letting ourselves feel uneasy or uncomfortable just for the sake of feeling uncomfortable is not what I have in mind. Neither is doing so for the sake of manufacturing some sort of guilt for sins we did not personally commit (for more on that, see my earlier post on apologies). But our resistance to feelings-for-feelings’-sake and to misplaced shame should not cause us to swing to the polar opposite side, refusing to acknowledge the pain of past wrongs and to take stock of our own lives to keep watch that we do not engage in sinful mindsets or behaviors ourselves.

Ignoring the brutal realities of slavery and the racist worldview that allowed it to thrive is a dangerous precedent just as forgetting any other part of history is. It is common to hear talk about remembering the Holocaust so that we make sure it never happens again, but somehow there seems to be reluctance among many to take the same attitude toward race-based slavery, as if the root of prejudice and thinking others to be beneath us is not within our fallen hearts.

Feeling the weight of the wrongs committed against enslaved people also helps us reckon with the fact that people are complicated. No one does only good or only bad. We all have the capacity for good and evil within us, and this is as true of the people of history as it is of people today. Even the most esteemed people of the past should not be treated as infallible; neither should one form of sin keep us from recognizing the good elements of someone’s life.[i] When we’re studying history, we should keep this perspective, acknowledging the good and the evil that people did as what they are and celebrating the good while repudiating the bad—even when those things coexist within a single historical figure’s life. (For more on this, see another previous post.)

As Christians, thinking on the dark period of transatlantic slavery is also instructive in our spiritual growth because it shows us how easy it is to be horribly, terribly wrong when it comes to our interpretation and application of Scripture. A whole society of God-fearing, Bible-reading people misinterpreted one passage in Genesis and thus saw nothing wrong with subjecting other people to slavery just because of their ancestry. Even worse, they thought it was by God’s direction that Africans be enslaved.[ii] This should cause us to have great humility when it comes to handling God’s Word. We must take great care that we do not abuse Scripture, forcing it to fit into our own agenda.

Yet another reason we shouldn’t shy away from truly feeling disturbed at the brutal realities of slavery is so that we don’t become hardened to evil or calloused to those who suffer because of it. Allowing ourselves to feel discomfort rather than quickly turning away helps us strengthen our muscles of empathy and compassion whereby we are able to enter into the suffering of others and show them the love of Christ by walking alongside them.

So the next time we encounter depictions or factual accounts of the horrors of slavery, let’s not be quite so quick to brush them aside. Instead, let’s sit a moment and allow the emotions to serve as an impetus to engage our minds. Think on what keeps us from falling into the same sins our forebears did, on the complex reality of human character and behavior, on the vital importance of rightly understanding the Word of God, and on how we can better serve others by feeling their pain with them. This doesn’t mean dwelling on the darkness all the time, but rather using the weight of the darkness to drive us toward spiritual growth. Sitting with slavery isn’t pleasant, but it can increase maturity if only we let it.    

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[i] It should be noted that here I am talking about our evaluation as humans of other humans in the context of historical study, not the judgment of humans by God. Even one sin, not to mention the sinful nature that we are all born with and that taints every action, is enough to condemn a person before the holy God, and only through Jesus’ sacrifice can a person be in right standing before God.

[ii] For more about this, see The Gospel & Racial Reconciliation (2016), series editors Russell Moore and Andrew T. Walker.

Trusting God When Obedience Makes Things Worse

Many people are familiar with the account of the Exodus, i.e. God’s deliverance of the Israelite people from slavery in Egypt, but often our summaries of it hit only “the highlights,” jumping from the burning bush to the plagues to the parting of the Red Sea. Having fled to the wilderness after killing an Egyptian, Moses encounters God at the burning bush and receives the command to return to Egypt, confront Pharaoh, and demand that the Israelites be released from their 400-year-long slavery. No big deal, right? Moses obeys but only after arguing with God about his lack of qualifications for such a prominent role, and he finally gathers up his family to head back to Egypt.

The next highlight we typically jump to is the ten plagues that God sends upon the Egyptians as Pharaoh repeatedly (and predictably, thanks to God’s giving a Moses a heads-up that this would happen) refuses to listen to God’s command as spoken through Moses and his brother Aaron. Eventually, after the first Passover, when God provided a way of salvation for the Hebrews from the angel of death who was to kill every firstborn son, Pharaoh finally let the Israelites leave but not without having yet another change of heart and pursuing them to the Red Sea, where God parted the waters to let the Israelites pass through safely before flooding the Egyptian army.

But in between the burning bush and the plagues is Exodus chapter 5, and it contains an important lesson if we pause long enough to look. When chapter 5 occurs, Moses has just returned to Egypt, and he and Aaron make their first visit to Pharaoh to request a several-day reprieve for the Israelites so they may travel to the wilderness to offer sacrifices to God. At the time, Pharaoh has the Israelites performing the particularly grueling task of making bricks from straw that was provided to them, and he sees the brothers’ request as a ploy to get his slaves out of doing their forced labor for a few days. In response, he not only denies the request, but he orders that the Israelites be forced to gather their own straw for the bricks. And on top of that he demands that they meet the same daily quota as when the straw was provided.

Understandably, the Israelites were furious and took out their anger on Moses and Aaron: “The LORD look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us” (Exodus 5:21, ESV). Moses had returned to bring deliverance to his people and instead found that his actions—actions taken in obedience to God—had brought greater hardship upon them. What was up with that? Obedience is supposed to bring blessing, right?

Moses did what we would expect any human to do in his situation. He had done what God told him to do, and now the people he was trying to help were turning on him, so he turned right around and questioned God about it. “Then Moses turned to the LORD and said, ‘O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all’” (Exodus 5: 22-23, ESV). I don’t know about you, but that sounds like exactly what I would say if I had done what God told me to do and had found the opposite effect from what I was expecting.

Today, we have the benefit of knowing what would happen next, how God would keep His promise and rescue the Israelites from bondage, but I think it’s important that we don’t immediately jump in our minds to the end of the story and instead sit a moment with Moses at the end of chapter 5. He had been obedient. He had taken great personal risk and gone through tremendous upheaval to do what God told him to do. And here he was faced with a reality that looked nothing like what God had promised. There was no deliverance; instead, there was increased abuse. It would have been easy for him at that point to give up, turn his back on God, and say, “Well there’s no point in continuing now. I was obviously wrong to believe things would actually get better.” But in taking his doubts and frustrations to God, he kept his heart open to hear God’s reply.

Right after Moses confronts God with “you have not delivered your people at all” (5:23), God replies with a striking first word: “Now.” He says, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land” (Exodus 6:1, ESV). It wasn’t that God hadn’t delivered on His promise. It was just that God hadn’t completed the delivery of His promise yet. God had told Moses back at the burning bush (Exodus 3) that Pharaoh would refuse to let the Hebrews go at first. On the way to Egypt (Exodus 4), He gave Moses a heads-up about the final plague—the killing of Pharaoh’s firstborn son. But God never promised immediacy or revealed the exact timeline for these events to occur. He never promised that things wouldn’t get worse before they got better, and Moses had to trust that the pieces God had told him would happen would still happen even though they hadn’t happened yet.

God in His mercy met Moses at his point of doubt and graciously reminded him of the long-standing relationship He had had with the Hebrew people through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He speaks to Moses in the past tense (“I appeared […] I also established my covenant”), in the present tense (“I am the LORD”), and in the future tense (“I will bring you out […] I will deliver you […] I will redeem you”), impressing upon him the power and faithfulness of God throughout time and showing him that he was just one small piece in an overarching chronicle of God’s relationship with mankind (Exodus 6:2-8). With this reminder Moses’ faith is bolstered, and he chooses to continue walking in obedience to God, even though the Israelites were not convinced (Exodus 6:9). He chooses to trust God and take Him at His word.

We know from 2 Timothy 3:16 that every part of Scripture is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” and I can’t help but think that Exodus 5 and 6 are included in the Bible to help us grow in our faith—to challenge us to remember God’s faithfulness to keep His promises even when it seems like He’s forgotten about them and to encourage us during times when our obedience seems to make things worse rather than better. God’s plan will never fail. His faithfulness will never falter. Our job is to remain steadfast in obedience—regardless of what backlash we receive—to reflect the goodness, glory, and faithfulness of God to a watching world.

To read the Arabic translation of this post, click here.

لقراءة الترجمة العربية لهذا المنشور إضغط هنا.

PC: Leila Coblentz. Used with permission.

Grieving Well: A Conversation with Tish Crook

I met Tish Crook several years ago through church, and for the past few years we have served together in our church’s Resource Center where she now serves as the inaugural Resource Center Director for the Mallard Creek Campus. Although trained as an electrical engineer, Tish recently changed careers from working in the telecommunications industry to becoming a Funeral Director alongside her sister in their family business, Harrisburg Funeral & Cremation. Tish’s family ministered to my own as we mourned the loss of my grandfather four years ago, and her caring heart continues to be an encouragement to many.

Tish has a passion for helping others to grieve well, and in today’s post she shares her heart on this issue. Last year brought a lot of loss—in a variety of forms—to many, and while we are ready to close the chapter of 2020, it’s important that we not close up our grief with it and instead move forward through grief to reach healing. Today I invite you to join Tish and me as we discuss the importance of the process of grief.    

Olivia: Why is grieving important? What is the harm in avoiding the process of grief?

Tish: Grieving is important because it helps your body process physically, mentally, and spiritually the emotional pain of a loss or death. Avoiding the grief process can have impacts on your physical, mental, and spiritual health. The impacts of avoiding grief affect people differently. Some people withdraw emotions, which negatively impacts current relationships or hinders connecting in new relationships. Some people develop anxiety or fear of others they love passing away. Others start to question their faith in God, especially if the loss is unexpected, violent, or unexplained. 

I have personally avoided the grieving process. When my grandmother passed away in 2014, I took on a role of caring for others in my family, making sure my parents had food, and scheduling every moment of the day until the pain of losing my grandmother had been numbed and buried in my list of to-dos. Unfortunately, through the years that followed, I would get massive bouts of anxiety at the slightest medical issue with another family member. I would drop everything to take care of them, at times exhibiting self-sacrificing behaviors trying to make sure I thought of every possible way to help them or the situation. It left me physically exhausted, more anxious and stressed, and realizing I had a trust issue with God.  So in 2019, five years after losing my grandmother, I went through the grieving process to heal and restore my physical, mental, and spiritual health.

Olivia: Should grieving look the same for everyone?

Tish: Grieving is different from person to person. It has to do with how they grew up, their cultural practices, and their willingness to go through the process. Grief requires you to go through emotions that are painful and uncomfortable. 

Olivia: How does being a Christian inform the way you serve grieving families?

Tish: As Christians, we are called to serve others. Just like Jesus, we serve sinners, saints, and everyone in between. All the families we serve know we are Christian. We state it on our website, and scripture is on the walls at our funeral home. Our goal is to be the light of Jesus Christ no matter what the beliefs are of the families. We give the same compassion and care to each family and let them know before they leave that we are praying for them. With Christian families, we can openly pray, repeat God’s truths, and point them to Jesus as their strength and peace during the grieving process. For non-Christian families, we make sure we let the Holy Spirit guide our words and actions. Again, we want to be the light of Christ, and that can only be seen when we are letting the Holy Spirit guide us.

Olivia: What are some resources you would suggest for those wanting to grieve well?

Tish: First I would suggest reaching out to your pastor. They may be able to guide you to church resources. Some churches have bereavement and counseling ministries that can help.

Second, I would suggest chatting with a trusted friend or family member. Sometimes, talking through your feelings with someone that you feel safe being vulnerable with is enough to help someone move forward.

I went through a program called GriefShare (www.griefshare.org). It helped me tremendously. It had people that shared their grief experience. It was great to hear people articulate the feelings that I was going through but didn’t have the words to label them.

Lastly, I would suggest seeking the help of a professional counselor or therapist if you feel stuck or are really struggling to process the loss. A couple of books that I would recommend are Grieving with Hope: Finding Comfort as You Journey through Loss by Kathy Leonard and Sam Hodges and What Grieving People Wish You Knew about What Really Helps (and What Really Hurts) by Nancy Guthrie.

I pray this conversation has encouraged you to work through whatever grief you are facing this year, to know you are not alone, to reach out to those around you for support, and to persevere to a place of healing. If you live in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area and need the services that Tish and her family provide through their business/ministry, I would highly recommend contacting them. You can find out more at their website: www.harrisburgfc.com 

Praying for America: Is It Worth It? (2021 Edition)

This past week I have been intentionally limiting my consumption of news and social media to spend time with my fiancé during the last week of his visit before we are once again separated by thousands of miles, so I do not find myself able to offer informed commentary on the events occurring in the nation’s capital city. However, I have seen enough to know that America is still in turmoil and that the foundations of state and federal constitutional governments and the rule of law are under assault.

So instead of offering political commentary or even moral commentary on current events, I’m going to share this post, originally written in 2016, as an encouragement to all of us to double down in prayer for our nation during this time when it can seem like it’s easier to throw up our hands and say, “Well, this is the beginning of the end.” It may be, or it may be the end of the beginning. And either way, our responsibility is still the same. Will you join me in prayer during these uncertain days?

I’m guessing the title of this post might have raised a few eyebrows, especially from the most patriotic among us. How could you even ask that question?! some might be thinking. Of course it’s worth it!

Yes, I agree that it is. But sometimes it’s really, really hard. 

Perhaps I should start at the beginning…

There are those that hold to the idea that America was a “Christian nation” at the time of its founding and has since slipped away to the point of its no longer being one. (In case you were wondering, I am not one of those people, but that’s a topic for another post…) Those who profess this view are usually the most outspoken about praying for America, with the goal of returning the country to its [supposed] former Christian glory. Citing 2 Chronicles 7:14, they often seem to promote prayer as a bargaining chip with which they can secure God’s favor and healing for the nation.

This type of talk has always left me with an unsettled feeling (and not just because of the questionable application of the 2 Chronicles verse), for it tends to present the assumption that if only we would increase our morality we would deserve God’s blessings and He would necessarily pour them out on us. Of course, to be fair, the element of genuine repentance is not always absent from such calls to prayer, but even it is often portrayed as a means to the end of God’s favor.

After some time of observing this perspective exhibited, I began to think about the justice of God. Knowing that America is not God’s chosen nation (again, a topic for another post), I began to feel it rather arrogant of any Americans to assume that we were due any special consideration from God at all. When you look at all the ways America has spat in the face of God and has lived directly counter to His Law, not just in the past few decades but over the whole course of our history as a nation—and even through our colonial history, it becomes a wonder that God has been as merciful and gracious to us as He has.

Also knowing that there is no Scriptural guarantee that America will continue to exist for any particular length of time and that there is a Scriptural guarantee that things will only continue to get more wicked and lawless as time goes on, it should not be alarming or surprising to us that immorality is as rampant as it is. It was as I began to ponder these things that I began to ask the question, “Is it worth it?” We know things are supposed to get worse before Christ returns, so what good will praying for things to get better do? And how can we be so daring as to ask the almighty, righteous God of all space and time to continue to be merciful to a nation so broken and belligerent as ours?

But then I heard J.D. Greear preach at the Southern Baptist Convention in 2015. His sermon was about judging and how misconstrued that term often is in our society. In describing the true meaning of the word, he gave a litmus test to show whether or not we are truly judging someone. One of the tests was whether or not we brush off a person (or nation of people) as hopeless, as beyond saving. If we do this, then we are judging them. And judging people is not our job; it’s God’s.

Ouch. In hearing this message, the Holy Spirit convicted me that in this way I was guilty of judging my fellow human beings in many instances. Even in my approach to thinking about America, I was guilty of this. As I looked at all the evil in our nation, cynicism rose up, and I began to think it not even worth asking God to spare us one more time.

But who am I to decide when God’s judgment will or should be poured out?

Yes, things are going to get worse and worse, but that does not mean that God will not relent for a time. The Bible is full of examples of God’s postponing or relenting from judgment because someone cried out to Him on behalf of the people. And that is totally His prerogative. Who am I to try to dictate God’s timeline?

And who am I to identify someone as beyond saving? I, whom God would have been totally justified in condemning, have been forgiven and pardoned instead. So if God saw fit to have mercy on me, then why would He not be willing to have mercy on this nation?

As I came to recognize, assigning condemnation to others not only is sinning against them but also is usurping the authority of Almighty God and is failing to ascribe to Him the characteristics with which He describes Himself: “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6, ESV). Heaven forbid that we presume such an assault on the character of God. After all, it is this very character that is the basis from which we can cry out to God for mercy in the first place. He is merciful because of Who He is, not because of who we are or what we have done.

So to answer the question of the title: yes. Praying for America is most definitely worth it because we know that our God is merciful even as He is just. And while we cannot be sure of what His answer will be, we can—and should—still plead wholeheartedly for our nation, asking that God will awaken hearts and minds to the Truth of His Gospel.

Let us pray, then, for the Church in America, that God will drive us out of our complacency and apathy to fulfill our calling of making disciples. Let us pray that God will be merciful to us and to those who are His enemies as we once were. Let us pray that His kindness will draw them to repentance (Romans 2:4) and that they will experience the abundant joy that is ours in Christ Jesus. Let us pray for God to do a mighty work in this country, not only for our good, but ultimately for His glory.

An Unusual Reminder to Encounter and Embrace Differences

Where I live now, the grass stays green pretty much year-round. Aside from eleven years of my life when I lived in Memphis, Tennessee, this has always been the case. In Memphis, the only grass you’ll find is Bermuda grass, which has the unfortunate characteristic of turning brown in winter, making Memphis winters especially dreary—the grass is brown; the trees are brown; even the roads are brown rather than black.

So when my dad posted a picture of our yard on social media a few weeks ago, our Memphis friends were amazed. How was our grass so green?! See, for many of them, brown Bermuda grass in winter is all they’ve ever known. Fescue grass that stays green all year is a novelty—something they hadn’t even known to think of.

I don’t say this to belittle them or their experience in any way. I had the exact (yet opposite) experience when we moved to Memphis—Brown grass? What is this? Green grass (and black roads) were all I’d ever known. But their reactions got me thinking. It’s been less than ten years since I left Memphis, but I’ve already become so reaccustomed to green grass, curvy roads, rolling hills, etc. that I’ve started to forget that everywhere is not like here. 

My family moved to the Memphis area from southwestern Virginia when I was ten years old. At ten, I was old enough to be well aware that this new home of ours was different—very different. And I loved learning about the things—big and small—that made west Tennessee distinct from the East Coast states I had known. Experiencing the differences in culture, topography, food, language, and accent that existed even between two areas of the same country helped me grow in many ways.

Learning that not everyone does things the way I do, says things the way I do, or experiences things the way I do helped me widen my perspective, deepen my awareness, heighten my curiosity, and broaden my capacity for showing empathy. This has aided me tremendously in years since as I have interacted with people from various places and backgrounds (and as I prepare to move to the other side of the globe).

So why do I share all of this with you in the last week of 2020? Because I’d like to encourage you as we head into a new year to think outside the box and not assume that everything in your current experience would be the same in any other place. This might seem obvious to some of you. After all, most people already know that everywhere is not like home. But it’s when you find those things you didn’t even know to think about that your horizons truly start to broaden.

When you learn that some people eat biscuits instead of rolls (not to mention that not everyone means the same thing when they say “biscuit”), that some cultures have groom-centered weddings rather than bride-centered ones, that people in most places think putting ice in drinks is weird, that engagements don’t happen the same way in every culture, that there are other kinds of dressing than the kind made with cornbread, that not everyone knows that restaurants can have drive-thru service, that people from some regions actually like unsweet tea (or sweet tea), that some cultures think shorts are immodest but low-cut shirts aren’t and others think the opposite, that some places have sirens to warn of tornados and others don’t, that to some people “iced coffee” is synonymous with “Frappuccino,” that not everyone knows what a bridal shower/baby shower is, etc., etc.—that’s when the real growth happens.

Simply put, there are things out there in the world that you don’t know you’re missing—just like I and my Memphis friends didn’t know there were different kinds of grass that behaved differently in winter—and the only way you’ll know is if you encounter them yourself or cultivate a curiosity that leads you to ask someone who has. Travel is of course one of the best ways to encounter different environments. International travel will give you the biggest exposure to differences, but travel within the same country or even the same state will, in many cases, provide just as much interaction with new things. If you are unable to travel, don’t worry—hope is not lost! Books, photos, and videos from the library or the internet can help you in your quest to grow through knowing more about the beautiful variety of God’s world and the people that inhabit it.

And another resource—perhaps the best one of all—is the people you know whom God has brought into your life. Whom do you know that has traveled abroad? Whom do you know that has grown up in a different environment than yours? Who has moved around a lot? Who has a different family size than yours? Who lives in a different climate? Don’t be afraid to ask them questions about their experience or about their physical environment, past or present. I’d like to encourage you: before year’s end, try to think of one person you could talk to who would help you expand your understanding of life outside your own bubble.

If I am that person for you, I’d be happy to talk. For many people, I’m the only person they know who is marrying an Arab and/or moving to the Middle East, so I have had multiple conversations with different friends and acquaintances who have questions about all sorts of things relating to those experiences. Since our very first date, my fiancé and I have held to this two-fold principle: don’t assume anything and don’t think any question is stupid. I’ve asked him things like, “Do you have taco seasoning over there?” or “Would you get in trouble if you just go down the street and pick up trash?” Sometimes the answers are not what I would have expected; that’s why it’s important to just go ahead and ask instead of assuming. So if you have questions about something I can speak to, you can ask whatever they are with the complete assurance that I won’t think you’re stupid for asking. 

It's always a great time to learn something new. And as we face a new year, let’s determine to expand our understanding of the world outside our neighborhood. Let’s open ourselves to the possibilities that await when we encounter people and places different from what we already know. Speaking from experience, I’d say when we look back a year from now, we’ll find that our lives have become all the richer as a result.