Images

In Helen Keller’s 1904 book, she made the following statement which has strengthened me in my daily existence as a totally blind person: “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

Character determines destination.  I praise God everyday of my life, and after you get my age you realize how quickly life goes by, that I have been chosen not only to believe in God, but to share in His suffering. Helen Keller never saw or heard anything, but she had a knowledge of human nature that God alone could understand.

After over 40 years of total blindness, I still have the mental images, which I prize more highly than gold, of what I saw when I was sighted. These images come to me in the isolation of dreams, as well as the reality of everyday life. I am thinking today of an aged black woman I met when I was about 20 years of age. I have some relatives and friends who are very much ashamed of their early poverty. I have a sister and brothers who, because of their education and hard work, are now very wealthy, live in magnificent homes, are members of wonderful country clubs, who do not like to be reminded of their poverty in their youth. It has never bothered me, I do not mind in the least reminding my contacts that mine has been a life of poverty and hard work. But, like my parents and grandparents before me, we did not stay in this economic condition. You are not stuck where you start. In speaking before large and small groups, I can assure anyone that hard work and clean living, depending on the mercy of God, will result in prosperity if God so desires.

I worked my way through 8 years of University education and I am not ashamed of the hard work, which not only helped me with a remarkable education, but brought me into contact with individuals who I will never forget. From selling Bibles door to door, up and down every “pig path” in Eastern NC, to 8 around the world trips, passport being stamped in 157 countries, I have made the acquaintance of human beings which has brought a wealth to my life, that most individuals can never experience.

On a hot summer day in 1950, selling Bibles in a remote area of Eastern NC, to the best of my memory, a dirt road near the black river, I left my 1941 Plymouth ( a car for which I paid $85), and went up on the front porch of a very modest farm house. An aged black woman was sitting on her porch in a rocking chair, it turns out that Ms. Rosella was 95 years of age.  Of course, this was before the war and I could see at that time. She bore all the marks of a hard life, but had the pleasant countenance of the saintly disposition I learned in our conversation.

She was delighted to talk to a Bible salesman because she had a definite love affair with the word of God and with our Savior. Her first comments were, “Son, if I miss out on heaven I have really missed out.” Then, she told me much of her life story.  Her husband had been killed in a logging accident, deep in the woods (logging is the cutting of trees for lumber) at the age of 35, leaving her with four young children, two boys and two girls. She said, “We were already poor and could barely survive, what was I to do now?”

She continued to work, doing anything, anywhere, to support the family.  The members of her poor country church and a few white families in the community had helped bury her husband.  She said, “Like a squirrel, I started preparing for the winter.”  The boys would go throughout the wooded areas and bring back any limbs or anything burnable for a wood pile to keep a stove going for cooking and for heat during the winter. The girls would pick any kind of berries, any type fruit that had fallen on the ground, and at night she would wash, peel and prepare the fruit for drying in the sun during the day. She had learned to weave baskets from weeds that grew along the river bank so the dried blue berries and black berries, apples and pears, she stored in baskets in the attic under the tin roof. Her husband had already built some rabbit box traps before he died and so each morning the boys would get the rabbits, possums, or other wild animals out of the traps which she skinned, salted and dried for meat.

The white farm family who owned the house in which she lived had given her assurance that she and her children could keep living there ( the very house and porch on which I was sitting) as long as she assisted with their farm and housework. The lady who inherited the property for whom she gave care until her death made all the legal arrangements to insure her living in the house for her life.

Now, getting back to survival, a widowed black woman with four children, all in school.  She said, “I understand the disciple Thomas had calluses on his knees from spending so much time in prayer, mine were the same way. Praying for my children to stay well because there was never money for doctors.”

“We would take our baskets and like the women in the Bible, would go over the fields getting any corn, beans, potatoes, anything that was left after the regular harvest of the crops.”

“My children wore “patched” clothes to school, “hand downs” from the white families in the community, but they were always clean and they all made good grades.  When each of my children graduated from high school the entire school community would join me in “shouting”, like I was in church.” 

“In all these years of survival and raising the children, we walked to church which was two miles away, never missed one Sunday and my seating space on the second pew from the front, is marked by a flower stand attached to the pew where someone in the church places a flower in my honor every Sunday. They have assured me this would continue to be done after my “graduation”. I always had chickens, eggs, a garden which produced wonderful produce which I dried and canned. All four of my children received scholarships for college and all four are still in the teaching profession. I have twelve grandchildren and the greatest pride of my existence is I have two grandsons that are medical doctors.  All of my grandchildren are college graduates.”

She wanted one of my large print Bibles and since I would take no money for it, she gave me one of her woven grass baskets, which I still own.  I asked her to give me her favorite verse from the Bible and now I give it to you.
“I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.” (Psalm 89:1)