My mother’s old rocking chair
Was given to me.
My eyes fill with tears
As the past I can see.
My mother knew love,
Eased every pain.
I can just feel her
Rocking me again.
Rocking, gently rocking.
A toothache, an earache,
Cuddled to her warm breast.
Oh, that wonderful mother
Today as I boarded a bus,
I saw a lovely girl with golden hair.
I envied her, she seemed so gay,
And I wished I were as fair.
When suddenly she rose to leave,
I saw her hobble down the aisle.
She had one leg and wore a crutch,
But as she passed, she flashed a smile.
Recently I read a story in one of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale’s books, “The Power of Positive Thinking”. It tells of a woman who had no money and all she had in the house to eat was two slices of bread. When a knock came on her door, she answered it to find a man who was on his way home. He had been looking for work all day but had found nothing. He told her his wife was very ill and wondered if she would have any food to spare so he could take some home to his wife. She thought, all I have are two slices of bread and if I give them to this man, I will have nothing to eat myself, but he looked so pitiful and she thought about his wife being so sick and having nothing to eat, so she gave him the two slices of bread.
In today’s Chronicle Herald, thanks to The Associated Press and Editor John Rogers, I read that Father’s Day was founded by a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd. She wanted to honour her father, and all fathers everywhere, and so campaigned to have a day designated to do so. The first day in celebration of fathers was Sunday, June 18th, 2017. This year, 2017, is the 107th year celebrating Father’s Day.
Of all the fathers I recall,
mine had to be the best of all.
I loved to feel his hands on mine
when we washed up at supper time,
and later, when we went upstairs,
I wanted him to hear my prayers.
He was the one to dim the light
when I had said my last good night.
This morning on YouTube, I found an old recording of Stuart Hamblen. He was testifying and singing at a Billy Graham Crusade in Los Angeles, California in 1963, 14 years before Billy Graham was there.
Fourteen years before, when Billy Graham was in the early days of his ministry in a tent in Los Angeles, Stuart Hamblen was converted and turned his life completely around. He had always been a songwriter but now he began to write hymns, and one of his first was “It Is No Secret”.