Author: Melissa Lynne

Last night I attended a community Thanksgiving Service at the church of my childhood. (Virtually, of course). Poplar Spring Baptist Church in Shelby, NC. Although more on the outskirts of Boiling Springs. It brought back so many great memories of Thanksgiving, Christmas plays and cantatas, Sunday night singings, dinners on the ground. Sunday School, Training Union, GAs and Acteens, Youth Choir.

Poplar Springs is the church where my dad and my brother were ordained. The church where my dad and my sister had their funerals and are now buried. The church that took us in and helped raise us after my dad died. The chuch where Dan and I were married. Then too, the church my mom and stepdad got married in. So many good people and so many good memories! I share this because since I am no longer there it is a piece of my life I have seldom revisited in person since I left Shelby in 1996. But, oh did that virtual visit make me homesick.

This is the church our family cleaned for years while my dad was preparing to go into the ministry. We cleaned every day of every week. Certain chores had to be done and we all had our assignments so that everything was nice and clean at service times and special times. We also did all the lawns, including the cemetery. Many were the days I sat out in the graveyard trimming the grass around tombstones with a pair of scissors.

Back then, we cleaned the toilets by hand, and there were about 20 of them. Cleaning toilets, though, in my opinion, was not the nastiest job – cleaning out the cigarette urns and picking up all the cigarette butts from the front steps was!!!! Boy, times have changed. Some say that change is not good, but I appreciate that there aren’t many men congregating outside on the church’s front steps to smoke these days.

I learned about missions and sharing the gospel, and I learned the Word of God at this church. I loved the youth group and youth choir, but as an awkward seventh grader, my parents had to force me to go because I was so shy. I am so glad they forced me. I learned to honor the elderly by visiting the shut-ins and the nursing home down the street. We didn’t do it just on special occasions. We just went. At first, I visited with my dad and later on my own. I have such good memories of those I met there.

I am so thankful for this place and all they instilled in me in those years. I am so grateful that they made sure I felt loved and cared for. These were a special people, and many (maybe most) have now moved on or passed on. Nothing much stayed the same except those stained glass windows and the pianist still playing all these years later. Oh yes….and what they placed in my heart. It is still there!

Love others and as God blesses you, bless others. Where would I be today had this church family not given sacrificially and faithfully to me and mine? They gave not just once but often over the years. These were not people that had great worldly wealth. They were farmers, teachers, nurses, and business people. I had no idea back then because they gave quietly. But I did know they were always there, ready to encourage or correct. They provided, and in the process, God used them to teach me to be a giver too. I am thankful that I learned all those years ago that LOVE feels great – oh yes, it does!

But, LOVE also looks like something. Maybe a smile, perhaps a visit, or sometimes it looks like a warm house. Love looks like many things given as needed – and now and then, given quietly!

Next week, I will celebrate my 60th birthday, and this week we celebrated Veterans Day. This particular time, combined with everything going on in this country, has caused me to look back and write down a few thoughts.

As a young married couple, Dan was in the Navy and deployed when I gave birth to our daughter. Meagan and I stayed with my mom for several months so I wouldn’t be alone. We then moved to Zion, Illinois. It was the first time I had ever been away from home for more than a couple of days.

When James was born two years later, Dan was there; but he left for a deployment when James was six-weeks-old. That time I stayed in Navy housing with my two babies. Don’t ever think that our military members (and their families) don’t pay a price well beyond a small paycheck for our freedoms. Do we regret that life or that circumstance? No way!!!!

No way, no regrets….but there were many weeks we ate soup and crackers daily so our kids could have what they needed. We lived far away from our families, back in the day before internet and cheap phone service (one 5 minute call per week was all we could afford). When Dan’s mother took a turn for the worse and died of cancer, we were too far away to get back in time. It was a price – but then we saw our country step in to send us back to PA to be with family for the funeral.

The nation watched the TV as CNN covered the Gulf War. I did too, alone at first. But then I watched with a community of wives as we went through it together. Are there wives that go astray? Yes! But most military wives that I met were struggling to keep their families taken care of while their husbands were gone. Our husbands (like so many others) were in the middle of that gulf. We helped each other in so many ways. We helped each other through the day to day chores, with childcare for doctor’s visits and to even go buy groceries (since at that time the commissary did not allow children), and we helped with the emotions military life brings. These were the things our children couldn’t provide and our husbands couldn’t provide – they were in a war! It was quite a great community of women – stronger than any of us knew.

It isn’t easy to be the one to leave; it isn’t easy to be the one to stay. Regrets? No, not one!!!! Complaints? Never!

Things of value rarely come without costs. Those were hard days, but precious days for us. When apart, we wrote letters to each other every day. When together, we sat at dinner and talked and dreamed of our future. We read books, walked in parks, flew kites, and fished. Those days helped make us who we are today, and those days were indeed some of the greatest of our lives.

Money can’t buy so many great things, but so many don’t know that because they are distracted by the things money can buy.

Dan and I were always very proud to do our part for this country. We knew at the time, and we know now that there is a price for our freedoms. We knew, and we volunteered for it. What a gift those prices now have become. Because of them, our freedoms hold great value to our family. We don’t take them lightly. We know that even if things get hard or we face challenges and even temporary separations, we can make it if we press on as a team.

When your spouse is gone for months on end and then comes back for a little while only to leave again…you both learn quickly not to make each other pay a $5 price for a one-cent bill, or you will spend your entire time together fighting. Time is precious. Love one another and don’t take each other for granted, or the things they do daily.

And never, never take your neighbors for granted because you never know that it might be you next in dire need of help or support or just a friendly ear!

Laugh every chance you get.

Keep your eyes on Jesus, stay in His Word, and in prayer. Serve Him and let everything you do flow from Him.