Follow Me

 Follow Me
Peggy K. Mack

July 18, 2013

Four years ago, my husband, Bill, encouraged me to begin researching my family ancestry.  He had been involved in a thorough search of his family records for a decade and felt certain that once I began my search, I would enjoy it and even love it.  So, while he went to work each day, I spent my newly independent days of retirement researching ancestry.com and took to it like a goldfish in a goldfish pond filled with fresh water and delicious food.

 I spent hours each day in searching through files, running up family trees, only to realize, on some days,  I was literally barking up the wrong tree.  Never undaunted, I would simply backtrack where I lost my way and begin searching anew.  So many wonderful pieces of information were literally at my fingertips and I slowly began to realize, not only who my family members were but,  who I was in following in their footsteps.

One amazing day, I had focused on trying to learn more about my dad's grandfather, Oliver Asberry Kelley.  An old letter that Aunt Ina sent Dad in the 1960s told the story of OA being born to a father from Ireland and being raised by his mother and father in Savannah, Georgia.  Census records confirmed that his father was from Ireland and his mother was from Virginia. That is all the information we have on them.  Aunt Ina told Dad that when OA was only 4 both his parents died of an awful breakout of yellow fever, malaria or something that took many of the residents of Savannah and left OA Kelley an orphan at 4.

 From there, OA's story goes silent until he met a family, traveled with them to Arkansas and later married their daughter.  By 1923, OA was dead and buried.  His life was over and it seemed so short and so silent to me. I began cross-researching with Findagrave.com where many silent volunteers work tirelessly throughout our country taking photos of every single grave and documenting them in their respective cemeteries for those who want to find their loved ones.

On that day, I came across the information page and photographof my great-grandfather, Oliver Asberry Kelley's headstone.  The man whom I never met and had only one old letter to tell me anything about him.  I knew. from family stories that he was a poor, humble farmer who loved his wife and ten children and worked hard until he died. But I did not really know much else about him, that is, until the moment I looked on that website and read his headstone. For one frozen moment in time, I sat and stared.  I did not know what my feelings were at first.  How could I be saddened to see a headstone of someone I never knew?  And yet, I was certain that is what my heart felt.  And then I enlarged the photo to read the tiny engraving at the bottom.   It said in fading curved letters:  He died as he lived, a Christian.
 
Tears streamed down my cheek as I accepted that Oliver Asberry Kelley had been in Heaven for 90 years and I now have no doubt of who he was even though I never met him.  I know because he lived his entire life as a Christian man.  And I thought on that day, as I think now, I would only hope that I live the same kind of life he led, day by day, in whatever way I can, to be known as a Christian until the day I die.  For in truth, nothing else matters, nothing.  For to be a Christian means you live as though Christ shines His light through you.  And for others who know little else about you, they will know one thing for certain, you live your life as a Christian.  What a gift my great grandfather gave me all these years later.  A silent message saying, this is all that matters...this is what is truly important. Follow my footsteps and die as you live, a Christian.

Since that moment, I have reclaimed the faith which has held a silent light in my heart and I have chosen to use it to bless others in any small way that I can.  It's the least I can do. Follow me, Christ told his disciples and from a silent headstone in a forgotten cemetery the message lives on. Follow me and die as you live, a Christian.

In my mind's memory comes the words to a little song I learned in church as a child:
This little light of mine,
I'm gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I'm gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I'm gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, all the time, let it shine.

Hide it under a mulberry bush?
No, I'm gonna let it shine.
Hide it under a mulberry bush?
No, I'm gonna let it shine.
Hide it under a mulberry bush?
No, I'm gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, all the time, let it shine.

Corinthians( I ) Chapter 13 verse 11:

When I was a child, I spake as a child.  But when I became a man, I put away childish things.




Philippians 3:13-14
13  Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14  I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.


Dear Lord,
Today I thank you for rekindling the fire of faith inside my heart.  I find you in so many little things that occur in each day and when I go back and look at times in my past I can see you were calling me then.  What good is the light we have shining in our hearts if we are not willing to open our hearts to others so they can witness your light through our lives and find the joys and peace and comfort we know?   Why would we not understand what children so readily see.  We have the light of Christ in our hearts and we should never hide it.  For there is no greater life we can live than to be said of us: She died as she lived, A Christian.  
Amen