HOPE for the Holidays - Day 12

My grandmother, 1950s

"But as for me, I will HOPE continually, and will praise You yet more and more. My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness and of Your salvation all day long; for I do not know the sum of them...And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to all who are to come!" (Psalm 71:14-15,18)


Story of HOPE:

       In 1916, my grandmother, Elsie Thomas, received her first teaching assignment: Shady Grove, a one-room, eight grade schoolhouse nested in the backwoods of the Tennessee mountains. 

"Shady Grove" by artist, Cami Monet Webb
(an illustration from my first storybook, The Schoolhouse)

      In 1955, Grandmother wrote a fourteen page letter to my mother describing her experience as a young teacher  on Whitwell Mountain and encouraged her to turn those adventures  into a short story for publication. Although Mother never attempted the assignment, she passed on to me the handwritten record of that beautiful, true tale of faith, determination, danger, servitude, and love.
        The letter lay in a drawer for years until I heard my pastor encourage our congregation to go after the dreams God has for us. The next morning, I believe the Lord said, "Jill, it's time to write her story." From a HOPE conceived decades before, came The Schoolhouse - a devotional storybook for families birthed through a dreamer's granddaughter.

O Father God-of-dreams-come-true, I pray that you will inspire my readers to go after the dreams that You have planned for them in Jesus' name!

"For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago!" (Eph. 2:10)