Confirmation!

Our babygrand and Uncle Dan

"Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; and confirm for us the work of our hands; yes, confirm the work of our hands." (Psalm 90:17 NASB)

               With the manuscript of Mr. Greenleaf's Unforgettable Summer now in the publisher's hands, I'm working on storybook #5. After about seven tries of writing and rewriting chapter one, I pleaded, "Lord Jesus, please tell me this story."

                   The Lord answered and last week, as He "talked", I recorded the first three chapters of Chancellor Ferry's Praying Hyde: the tale of a little, brown mantis that lived along the Coosa River during the Great Depression of the 1930s. 

                  You're probably thinking, Jill, why do you believe the Lord is telling you this story?

                       Well, I'm glad you asked. On Monday, I typed:

          On a hot July day in the little town of Childersburg, Norman  Hyde climbed up the whitewashed siding onto a windowsill beside the Estey pump organ (his regular seat on any given Sunday at the Mt. Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church) and peered inside. The little, brown insect saw a middle-aged man in a worn, black suit standing in the pulpit wiping rivulets of sweat streaming down his brow. In the pews, menfolk mopped their faces with white handkerchiefs, and the womenfolk fanned red-cheeked babies. The blistering, summer heat of 1935 felt hotter than sizzling grease in a frying pan, and a breeze through the open windows was as rare as pocket change in the offering plate.

           Americans were struggling to keep their heads above water in the worldwide economic typhoon; and folks in the south - Alabamians in particular - were hit harder than a Babe Ruth home run. With men out of work and families out of food, a single egg became so valuable that a farm boy could trade it for all the candy he wanted at the local grocery store. I reckon, in some ways, the bug-kind got by easier than mankind in those days, since they could catch supper instead of having to buy it or grow it. 1

                  And then on Friday, I "just happened" to meet an older gentleman in Childersburg that grew up along the Coosa River, had ridden the Chancellor Ferry as a child, and whose daddy owned a grocery store that carried fans used in the local churches on hot summer days.

Beloved, pray today to the Lord who really does answer prayers and will indeed confirm the work of your hands!

old fan from Dunlap Grocery

back of fan

    Our God is an awesome God!
(By the way, I changed "local grocery" to Dunlap Grocery.)

1 CHANCELLOR FERRY'S PRAYING HYDE. Copyright Jill Glassco, 2015.