Recently we experienced a drainage problem and had water in part of our basement. Our little flood was nothing like families who have lost everything in floods have encountered, but we had to take a Saturday to clean up and decide what to throw away and what to keep.
At the bottom of one of the boxes were two old family Bibles. When I saw the Bibles, I had to bite back angry words. They had been used for props in a play and had been left on the basement floor rather than being returned to the shelf in the living room.
Finally I swallowed and decided not to have a fit about the Bibles. My son was helping me clean and we talked together about how the Bibles were only physical possessions. They represent a legacy of faith in our family, but the paper is not as important as the fact that faith is a part of our family history. Even more important than a family history of faith, is having my children make faith their own and embrace faith for their future.
I did keep the page in the Bible with inscriptions, so that some future generation would know about our legacy of faith, and would know that my mother had received a Bible in 1942 for memorizing the catechism at Union Valley Church, where her mother was the Sunday School teacher.
Much personal property has been lost in recent weeks, but the most important possessions cannot be washed away.
Written by Carla Foote
