I
will start this story by sharing the earliest photo I know of that
shows my father holding me. This would have been taken in early 1945. I
had a brother that was nearly three years old when I was born. I think
my father would have been very happy to have a baby girl join the family
so I’m quite confident that Dad and I started off on very good terms
upon my arrival.
My
father was very hard working when I was a child. He had the career he
chose and dearly loved which was being a dairy farmer. The life of a
dairy farmer is filled with much labor which is sometimes seasonal but
always daily. Cows have to be milked twice a day, 365 days of the year.
Those cows have to be fed and cared for 365 days of the year. My
father preferred to do all of the farm work by himself with the support
of his children as they were needed and as they grew in ability to help
with farm tasks. Fortunately for our family, the first child born to my
parents was a boy. The photo below shows my parents and Jimmy who
would not have any siblings for nearly three years.
My
father had graduated from Viroqua, WI High School and a Normal School
in Viroqua which was the school that trained teachers. He did his
practice teaching to complete his course work to become a teacher but
decided that teaching was not a career that suited him. He knew that he
much preferred and excelled at dairy farming. Following his schooling,
he and his brother, Hubert, shared the farm work for his paternal
Grandmother, Minnie B. Cox Groves. His paternal Grandfather had died so
there was an open need for my father and Uncle Hubert to become the
workers who would care for the life and farm of their grandmother. The
photo below was taken in a hay field on my Great-Grandmother Minnie B.
Cox Groves’ Farm. Minnie’s oldest son, William F. Groves, is raking the
hay with a team of horses. My mother is driving the tractor that is
hitched to a hay wagon and hay loader. My father is using a fork to
fill the hay wagon before it is taken back to the barn where it will be
unloaded into the hay mow where it will remain to be fed to the cattle
during the winter months when cows and other animals are kept inside the
warm barn away from frozen ice and snow.
In this post, I am remembering some people who have shown me great kindness at a time when I needed physical and/or emotional kindness and encouragement. Since I will be using my mother as an example of someone who showed me great kindness in my early childhood, I have posted a picture of Mom and me shortly after I was born. Since I was born on December 7, 1944 in La Crosse, WI, this photo must have been taken the following spring when there would have been warmer weather in WI. Perhaps this was taken on Easter of 1945.
One month after my fourth birthday, I was with my father, my brother and a younger sister as we were on our way to church. It was Sunday morning, January 2, 1949. My mother had stayed home with my youngest sister who was 16 months old. We lived on a farm which was seven miles from the Nazarene Church we attended in Winona, MN. Apparently it had been snowing during the night and only one lane of the road was plowed out at the time of our drive. The road was somewhat hilly and curvy. At one point there was a sharp, blind corner with big trees obscuring site around the corner. Apparently we entered that curve going in one direction while another vehicle was doing the same coming directly toward us. We collided head-on with the oncoming car. I was standing on the passenger side floor board looking out the front windshield. My face smashed into the metal dashboard of our car and six of my top baby teeth were knocked out. My father’s glasses flew off his face and landed in the backseat. My six year old brother and my two year old sister were sitting in the back seat and were not significantly hurt. I vaguely remember being in a dentist’s office following the accident where I was being examined. My teeth were never found.
I imagine my parents called my Grandparents who lived in Chicago, IL at that time to tell them about the accident. I have my Grandmother, Amanda Isaacs Groves’s, diary from that date and this is what she wrote about the accident. “On Sun. Jan. 2nd Jas (James) & 3 children collided with another car near Semlings, damaging their car & hurting Linda quite badly knocking teeth out & cutting her jaw. Jas & Jimmy were bumped & bruised but Kathy wasn’t hurt at all. Sent card and toy bank phone to Linda.”
To answer this question, I will begin by explaining the two different definitions of the word ‘faith’.
1. DEFINITION
The first definition for ‘faith’ comes from the Bible. The word ‘faith’ as a noun is rarely used in the Old Testament but is implied with verbs such as ‘believe’, ‘trust’, or ‘hope’. The word ‘faith’ is used frequently in the New Testament where it is connected to a personal belief in Jesus Christ as the one who God sent to the world to be the Savior through his death on a cross and resurrection three days later. Acts 16: 31 states the answer a jailer was given by the Apostle Paul after he asked, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved…” Another way to say this would be to say, “Have ‘faith’ in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”
A man named Nicodemus came to Jesus after dark one night in order to get answers to some of his questions about who Jesus was. Jesus told Nicodemus that “no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” The conversation between these two men continued and is recorded in John 3. Verse 16 is Jesus’s statement about how to be ‘born again.’ This is what he tells Nicodemus. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Here again ‘believes’ is a synonym for ‘has faith.’
The Apostle Paul writes a letter to people in Rome. The Bible includes his letter in the New Testament. Paul tells the Romans in Romans 1 that through Jesus Christ he had “received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from ‘faith’”. In chapter 3, Paul tells the Romans about God’s righteousness. In verse 22 he says “This righteousness from God comes through ‘faith’ in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” In chapter 9, Paul tells the Romans that he is proclaiming the word of ‘faith’ which he explains in verse 9. “That if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Paul explains in Romans 10: 17, “…faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”
The Bible has many verses that include the word ‘faith’. The following verses make a very important and clear statement that provides more understanding about ‘faith’ as revealed in scripture. Ephesians 2: 8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through ‘faith’ - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast.
2. DEFINITION TWO
The second definition of ‘faith’ as stated in Webster’s Dictionary is “a religion or a system of religious beliefs: as the Catholic faith.” Under this definition, the ‘faith’ of my parents from my birth to about age 8 was the Nazarene ‘faith’. Another word which is a synonym of this use of the word ‘faith’ is denomination.
The photo below was taken of me and my four siblings on the day my brother and I joined the Winona, MN Nazarene church and received Bibles as a gift. Our parents had joined this church a few years earlier after our family moved from a farm near Viroqua, WI to a farm near Fountain City, WI which was seven miles from the bridge across the Mississippi River which took us into Winona, MN. We are lined up outside of the church. From left to right: Margelyn, Barbara, Kathleen, Linda and Jimmy.We remained members of this Nazarene church for a few more years but our family moved our membership and involvement to the Lakeside Evangelical Free Church in Winona, MN. a few years later.
