With it being a new month, I would like to begin a new series: Thankfulness. We have so much to be thankful for! Over the next few weeks, if the Lord wills, we will look at passages that express thankfulness and take a closer look at all the things we need to appreciate and give thanks for!
If you are reading this, God has already blessed you with a new day, sufficient health, eyesight, ability to use your hands, a mind able to function and understand!! God is SO good!! To Him be the glory forever and ever!!
Thinking about this new topic made me consider my family history - relatives who changed our family for the better because of their choice to seek God and follow His truth! Today I am thankful to God for the people in my family history who, when they found God’s truth, embraced it as truth, and chose to follow Him the rest of their days.
Let
me begin at the beginning…
Around
the age of 17, my Grampa (Victor) Sullivan was desperate for shelter/work (it
was the 1920’s) and he became a hired farm hand for his Aunt Lizzy (Elizabeth
(Eller) Brown) and Uncle George Eller. He was given room and board and was
firmly informed by Aunt Lizzy that “You’re going to church with me on Sunday.”
So
Victor went with Aunt Lizzy to church services each Sunday and heard God’s
truth, straight from the Bible. Later, Victor obeyed the gospel by being
baptized into Christ and began his walk as a Christian.
Grampa
married a beautiful Anglican girl, Mary McDonough. They eventually studied the
Bible together with Art & Lillian Corbett (my husband’s grandparents!) and
my Gramma discovered God’s truth in the Bible and was baptized into Christ.
Together they worshipped with the church in Jordan (when they met in a building
that stood where Snure Cemetery is now), and helped build the current meeting
place on Hwy 8.
The
church grew to well over 150 members in Jordan and the elders at the time
decided to see if other congregations could be started around Ontario. So they
placed ads in newspapers offering free Bible Correspondence Courses (Bible
studies via mail), to places like Haliburton, Bancroft, South River, and
Wellandport.
An
ad was placed in a Dunnville newspaper (to find people near Wellandport), a
paper which my Great Aunt Pearl Nicholls read. My Great Aunt answered the ad
and shared the course with her husband Glenn and her sister-in-law (my
grandmother) Marjorie (Nicholls) Gare.
My
grandmother was a Free Methodist and had been married to a well known Free
Methodist preacher until his death. When she studied the Bible, she realized
that it was God’s Word, and she desired to do what she read there, and she was
baptized.
My
Grandmother Gare worshipped with the church in Wellandport (when they met in
the rented Oddfellows Hall) until her passing a few years later.
My
mother and father met each other while worshipping with the church in Wellandport.
And the rest, they say, is history! smile emoticon
The
same truth that convinced my Grampa’s Aunt Lizzy, was the same truth that
convinced him and my Gramma Sullivan, it was the same truth that convinced my
Grandmother Gare (and my Great Aunt Pearl & Great Uncle Glenn Nicholls AND
my Great Aunt Sis & Great Uncle Allen Nicholls), it was the same truth that
convinced my Dad and my Mom, it was the same truth that convinced me (and my
siblings), and my husband (and his siblings), and it’s the same truth that
convinced both our daughters that they needed to obey God’s Word by being
baptized into Christ!
I
am thankful for my Great Aunt Lizzy and my Great Aunt Pearl! I thank God for
them, as well as the elders at Jordan who wanted to spread God’s word
province-wide… I’m thankful for gospel preachers like John Whitfield, Norman
Midgette, Hubert Showalter, and John Witt, who preached God’s truth and studied
with many people, showing them God’s way, straight from the Bible!
Thank
you Heavenly Father for Your enduring Word!!
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