Granny - A Perfect Example of the Generosity Principle

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Luke 6:38 (New International Version).

Brown sugar. That's what popped into my brain during this morning's sermon when this scripture was read.

Anyone who has done even a little baking knows that every time a recipe calls for brown sugar, it includes instructions to "pack" the brown sugar - press it down and add more, press it again until the cup is full. Now, I'm not a baker, but I can follow a recipe and know that packing and pressing down is important to have the right amount of molasses sweetness in the final product.

Maybe we need to apply that same principle to our kindness, generosity, thoughtfulness, love, and service to others - and not just to the people we know and care about, but to those who don't like us, and we don't exactly like them. To the stranger, we meet on the street or in a store, and yes, even to our enemies - maybe most importantly to our enemies.

Have you ever noticed how sticky molasses is? It takes a great deal of licking to get it off your fingers. Just think how your generosity, kindness, and service to those who like you least might stick to them. Being Jesus to everyone isn't easy, but it is what He commanded His followers to do. We don't get to pick and choose.

Brown sugar and molasses always make me think of my great-grandmother, Granny, to those of us who knew and loved her. She was a wonderful example of this principle - I never heard her say anything unkind to or about anyone. I'm not saying she never did, but I never heard her. Her quiet, gentle spirit permeated everything she did. The older I get the more I miss her. She loved Grandma Molasses with a little butter mashed in and burnt toast - yes burnt. We children would scrunch our faces up every time the bread got burned and complain loudly. Granny would just say, "It's not burnt, it's just good brown." I've posted about Granny before and if you've missed that post, you may find it here i-remember-granny.html.

Granny was one of the older girls in a family of nine children - six girls and three boys. Below is a picture of her family. I believe Granny is the second daughter in the back row, standing beside her father (Daniel Pence). The first time I saw this picture, I also saw the next picture of her parents. It made me laugh. In the picture with all the young children, her mother looks tired and angry - of course, in those days you would have to be still for some time to take the picture. Couldn't have been easy with all those children. In the second picture, where her children are all grown and out of the house, she has the biggest grin on her face. It always makes me giggle to compare the two.

Granny loved babies and after raising her four sons, she helped raise her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The black and white below is her rocking me and the color picture is my daughter, Michelle - her great-great-grandchild. Behind and beside Granny are my two grandmothers, Ruth Teeter and Bertha Hall. The last two pictures are of Granny in our backyard feeding our chickens and with her boys. From left to right, Henry, Cecil, and Edward - she lost one to lung cancer years before I was born. Henry was my grandfather.

We all have those individuals who made an indelible mark on our lives and Granny is mine. Who's yours?
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