Where Do Your Roots Take You?

Where do your roots take you?

My roots take me to a little country church on the back roads of Clark, South Dakota; a church where my great-great-grandparents were one of the founding families when it was organized in 1883. My grandparents were baptized and confirmed there, along with my mother and her eleven siblings. I remember attending services there as a child. I sat with my brother and sisters on wooden pews, dressed in our Sunday best, surrounded by my grandparents and other farming families in the area. A white-haired lady played the piano while untrained voices sang

Beautiful Savior

and

What A Friend We Have in Jesus

in four part harmony.

Clark Center Church

Where do your roots take you?

My roots take me to a country cemetery where one huge tree stands sentinel. The cemetery is old and unkempt, surrounded by a dilapidated barbed wire fence. The remains of my great-great grandparents, who came from Norway are there, along with other family members, many who died from tuberculosis in the 1880's.

My great-great grandparents' two daughters died within one week of each other from tuberculosis.

Where do your roots take you?

My roots take me to another cemetery, in the shadow of Clark Center Church. The graves are groomed and maintained, although according to one bystander, not so beautiful as on Memorial Day when all the graves are decorated with flowers and the peonies are in bloom and flags are put on the graves of servicemen. The day I am there, the atmosphere is casual. Family members snap pictures of my great-grandparents' and grandparents' graves, while children play tag among the tombstones.

Where do your roots take you?

My roots take me to a 100 year reunion with 125 relatives on my mom's side. We hear stories, look at photographs, have a fashion show of vintage dresses, and eat delicious food for two days, including the traditional Norwegian pastries: kringla, kransekake and lefse.

I hear stories of resiliency: of an uncle who worked all summer for a farmer, but when the crops were bad that year, the farmer couldn't pay him, so he went to college that next fall with fifty cents in his pocket. He found a job (and lodging) at a power plant, shoveling coal, and paid his way through school.

I hear stories of heartache: of my grandfather's first wife who died from childbirth complications after the birth of her eighth child. I hear how my aunts, age 13 and 14 at the time, take over the household duties and care for their younger siblings. My grandfather used to hire housekeepers to help, but most didn't last very long with bread to bake, meals to be cooked on an old cook stove, laundry to be done without electricity and eight children to care for. One of those housekeepers did stay - my grandmother. She married my grandfather in 1934.

I hear stories of tradition: of the annual Christmas program where the sanctuary was lit with kerosene lanterns and the children sang carols and recited memorized parts of the Christmas story. Men sat next to the Christmas trees with buckets of water in case a candle on the tree set it aflame. After the program the children would receive a small brown bag with peanuts in shells, a few pieces of candy and either an orange or apple.

Do roots matter? Is our family heritage more than stories and traditional food and reunions where we get together and take pictures of tombstones?

I believe roots do matter.

I love a Bible verse, hidden in Deuteronomy, among the lists of rules and dietary restrictions, a section of scripture I usually reserve for reading when I can't sleep. But this isn't a go-to-sleep verse, it's a wide-awake-pay-attention-because-this-is-a-mind-blowing verse:

Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments. Deuteronomy 7:9

One thousand generations.

That. Is. An. Incredible. Blessing.

Most of us, if we were honest, want to leave a legacy. We want to leave our mark on this earth and be remembered. If possible, we want to somehow outlast our deaths by the good we have done on this earth. But most of us will end up like my relatives - a name on a tombstone with a few good stories. Even those will be forgotten after four or five generations.

Yet there is one thing we can do, that holds a promise to be remembered for one thousand generations: we can love and serve God.

That is an awesome legacy.

Sometimes I get this complaint from friends: It's easy for you to talk about the importance of a godly heritage because you have one. I don't. I come from a long line of ax murderers, alcoholics, pirates, swindlers, or ___________, fill in the blank.

This is the beauty of this promise. If you don't come from a godly heritage with grandparents and great-grandparents that love God, it doesn't matter. YOU can become the one who starts the promise for future generations. You can be the one who begins the change. You can be more than just a few good stories and a tombstone at a family reunion.

My siblings and I at the reunion.

So, how about you?

Have you come from a godly heritage or are you the one beginning the legacy for future generations?