Let Me Live in the House by the Side of the Road

 

I love this cross stitch, it was made by my Great Aunt Margaret and it hung in my Mema’s house. That is actually HER farmhouse in the picture. When they moved her the house had no plumbing or electricity. There was an outhouse and a well on the property. A great big pecan tree. I grew up on the property right behind her home and barns. Wow, this sounds about as southern as you can get. 

 Anyway, it hangs in my home now, and I don’t know if you can read it, but it says “Let me live in the house by the side of the road and be a friend to man”

This was basically Mema's rule of life, not that she would have called it that.  

She was a friend to everyone she met. 

She never had an Instagram account or a Facebook feed.  I have no idea how social media would have shaped her for better or worse. Her life was lived out in those flesh-and-bone days that we seem to be stepping away from. My memories of her are all wrapped up in my senses. I remember the feel of the skin on her arms wrapped around me. The spiky texture of her amber tea glasses in my hands. The sizzle of her skillet. Her freezing cold bedroom in the front of the house where she would tuck my twin and me up into bed as girls and pack us in tight under so many blankets. The sound of the kickball as she kicked it toward us. Her perfect lap and silky soft hair. The sound of her voice as she made up stories for us. Her kooky friends that would often visit. How she tried to find the good in everyone. She delighted in a loving God, in his people, in his creation. She made everyone feel like they were her favorite.

I am so thankful I can remember her as a woman with her eyes and heart set upon whomever crossed her path.  She was a witness to the world unfolding right before her. And not through empty words, but through her VERY LIFE, she testified to all that was good and beautiful and broken in it.

And I wonder how our world might change if each one of us just lived in the house by the side of the road and was a friend to man.