I GOT MY GOD

I often open up my memory bank and bring out certain things and people I knew while growing up on the Knob. I just do not think there was a better place to grow up than in that quiet little corner of the world. A place where kids were just as safe in the woods playing as they were  in the house they lived in. A place where there were some of the best trees to climb and no better ones could be found anywhere else. A place where kids shed their shoes on the first day of May, and didn’t put them on again until September when they went back to school. A place where there were no strangers and everyone called each other by first name only. It was home, a haven of peace and contentment.

It was wonderful to wake up in the morning to a life of summer breezes, FRESH SQUEEZED LEMONADE, and HOMEMADE biscuits and a bowl of gravy on the table.  What better way to spend time than sitting on the porch in the evenings and watching fireflies as they waltzed around the little valley below our house. No such thing as traffic jams on the Knob and at night, a million stars twinkled in the sky like diamonds.

Growing up in Kentucky implanted a country woman in me that still desires the sound of crickets chirping and  I compare them to music in the night.  Being able to pick a red, juicy apple off the tree in our back yard was something worth smiling about.

I cannot exactly pinpoint when my love for the country life began. I think it was from a very small child and the stories the “old folks” told me…I have said before I loved being with the elderly and would always be found among them anytime I could.

From my memory bank recently, I pulled up Mr. Jim Matt. What a wonderful old gentleman he was. He had many stories to share and I loved him sharing them with me…

In thinking of him, I wrote this poem and titled it. “I Got MY God.

I knew an old man who lived all alone,

With no earthly treasures to call his own.

I ask him one time just how he got by,

“I got my God” was his kind reply.

“But don’t you get lonesome?” I wanted to know,

And don’t you get tired with no where to go?”

“I got my God.” He kindly replied,

He meets all my needs and walks by my side.”

“What will you do when summer time fades,

Who will you have to come to your aid?”

“I got my God,” again was his reply,

He is all that I need to help me get by.”

I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread…Psalm 37:25

I now embrace the “what” that made me the “who” I am today. Me – a gal who found joy  with the fact she was raised in the country, a gal who knows how to go fishing, mow yards, and loves walking barefoot in the grass.  A woman who loves my God and knows He is all I need.

If you are ever in the country and you want to feel like a kid again, find yourself a dirt road, stop, take your shoes off and walk a couple of steps and feel the dust between your toes, see if it won’t soothe your soul. You too may decide that walking barefoot on a dirt road isn’t bad at all! That is the way I see it.

Walk with God,

Mary Frances King~