I can go to Muddy’s farm, though she’s not there anymore. I can walk through the field where the house once stood, where the white stone milk barn is overgrown with growing, climbing, twining things.
I can walk the path Muddy’s children, my grandmother and 3 uncles walked, where my mother and her 3 sisters and brother walked, where my brother, cousins crossed the swinging bridge.
I remember Muddy when chickens and roosters strutted in the drive, and the water behind her house where Brashears Creek meets the Buck Creek. My boys have been there, skimmed slate rocks across the surface. That day, the water sparkled like diamonds under the blue sky and sunshine, as if to say, we’ve missed the sounds of feet like yours, murmurs like yours – won’t you stay like the children long ago stayed, shrieking, laughing, splashing, cooling in the summer heat, dragging toes through our sparkle?
Muddy’s creek wasn’t just a pretty sparkly. It refreshed, pushed back, nurtured – cooling fevers, quenching thirst, washed away the daily. It’s banks could tell a story of provision for real needs, real refreshing – real life. Sometimes it forgot its place, over-stepped it boundaries and crept in un-invited into Muddy’s home.
“I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread” (Proverbs 37:25).
Muddy’s farm, where she and Claude walked out their faith, marked passages in prayer books that held journey significance.
where children were born and grandchildren summered.
where after cooking noon supper, Muddy would take her bible or her prayer book, sit up in her bed and read until time for dinner preparation.
where the harvest, the milk barn cows, eggs and chicks helped fill plates at her daughter’s, Mary Edna’s kitchen table in the city, when food was rationed during the war.
The builders of the house and the barn are gone, as are the aprons, the cake pans, the box of candy beside Muddy’s chair the day I remember winding my way to her, cows needing to be milked, the voices calling to supper, the radio, Claude’s leather University of Kentucky football helmet from their 1898 team, The Immortals. It’s all gone – but they left behind something nature couldn’t reclaim.
They left soul wells of living water that Muddy and Claude probably inherited from their forefathers. Their soul wells are my inheritance, available for me to open, to drink deeply from and be filled. Those soul wells reach down to nurture still today, just like they did during World War I, The Great Depression, World War II, through the 50s.
Life’s challenges may try to fill up those wells built for my aunts, uncles, cousins – my brother and I, our children – but they’re there, just waiting to be cleared, opened up for refreshing.
The names of that well are the same as Muddy’s: Savior, Redeemer, Shaddai, Yahweh, Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah-Shalom, Jehovah Rapha, Jehovah-Raah, I Am.
I re-dig those wells for my house – my husband digs them with me for our sons, their wives, our grandchildren – and great-grandchildren, – on down – leaving a rich inheritance. The wells we leave might be neglected, might be forgotten by some – but for a heart hungry for the great I Am – they will be there to be re-dug, to nourish, refresh and fill to over-flowing for the heart thirsty, a heart willing to find a Father God who loves us more than we can wrap our hearts and brains around.
The children of the righteous need never go begging. They have been provided for. Sometimes, they just need to go to the well, re-dig it, and drink deeply from the Holy waters.
*Note: I know it was Mary Eva (Muddy to her grandchildren- Mayme to her friends) and Claude’s farm – not just Muddy’s. I wish I knew more of Claude’s story, but I bet his story is passed down from his sons to his grandsons, the shared work, man’s responsibility and leadership of the household – the hard digging of the wells. I approached this from the matriarch’s perspective that has been handed down over kitchen table preparations, where women gather and share their history. In this house-full of boys, there’s no one really to pass my history down to – thank you for sitting down to the table with me, dicing up some celery, maybe peeling some potatoes, sharing a cup of coffee or tea. We all need to share our stories.
I loved reading this story. It felt exactly like a good story told while clearing the plates and wiping down the table. The deep wells you spoke of: such a clear and beautiful reminder of that, for us who mother, who as keepers of the home are actually the keeper of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the home, to quench or flourish, that we are digging something deep. Something that will outlive us. Something a photograph or even a journal can never capture. The essence of God. He gave life. Jesus served, rescued. The Holy Ghost fills up. When we continually do that in our homes, do it for others, we dig those deep wells without markers. Thank you so much. I’m glad you wrote this story out,
Cheers,
Leah
what a beautiful post. Thank you for sharing your lovely blog at the Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop xo
I’m transported – to a place I would love to have lived. A family to have known. Just lovely – your word pictures and the legacy you have to cherish and share with others. I wrote a poem inspired by an afternoon I spend exploring and ruminating in an abandoned diary farm in Virginia. I called it – “The Romance of the Ruins” – published in in my Fragrant Fields book on my site. It is a cherished memory of a place I met the Lord one day. You have such a place in your own family history – so blessed!
Joy!
Kathy
Would love for you to link this at my All Things Bright and Beautiful linky launch this week!
Beautiful! Reminders of my mom’s family flooded my memory as I read this! Sitting around the dining room table and sharing life, childhood and moments which are now part of my heritage. Thank you for the reminder and for digging the well that I need to explore more deeply! Blessings!
The verse and your memories spoke to my heart today. There are wells of grace and salvation awaiting opening and reopening for us all from our great God!
I would so love to walk those pathways with you, Mary Leigh …
What a lovely walk down memory lane and certainly your boys need to hear this too. Thank you for sharing your inspiring post with us here at ‘Tell Me a Story