By Brenda Black
June 21 is my birthday. I'll save you
from doing the math. I'm 50. I've been asked how it feels to be so
old. I answer, “Not a whole lot different from the day before.”
Now ask me what I think about a young couple raising a family in the
early 60's, providing a safe and happy childhood in the midst of
racial rioting, a controversial war and
the assassination of a president. Well, that amazes me!
In the weeks just prior to my birth,
civil rights activists were shamed, hosed and slain. The Vietnam war
was in full swing with my parents watching nightly news broadcasts
highlighting the demonstrations of the day and tallying the death
toll. When I turned two months old, my mom would have been rocking
and feeding and singing lullabies while Civil rights leader Reverend
Martin Luther King, Jr. lead the “March on Washington.” Just shy of three months of age, my parents would hear about an explosion which struck the 16th Street Baptist Church, killing four girls in Birmingham, AL. I wonder if they thought about their little girls growing up in a world so violent. And it only seemed to get worse.
I was five months and one day old when
Lee Harvey Oswald shot President John F. Kennedy.
Racial tension,
riots, earthquakes, hurricanes, war and murder. Yet, I remember none
of that in my formative years. While King bellowed “I have a
dream,” I was living one under the wise and loving protection of
positive parenting.
My memories are
not tainted with hateful prejudice. I was taught to get along with
everyone. My nights were not filled with fear; I went to sleep
feeling safe and secure.
Oh the pressure
they must have felt! The anxious thoughts of what tomorrow would hold
for their young and growing family surely bore down on them. But they
never expressed such angst. Once I began logging memories, I remember
only a wonderful childhood filled with life and love and great
experiences.
We carved our
own way in the world as a family not consumed by politics, prejudice
or pain. In the midst of the worldly chaos, my folks were filling my
life with better things. Like supper together, a move to the country,
good old fashion chores, family vacations, fishing, horseback riding, and their
unfettered determination to give us what we needed and help us
appreciate it when we got what we wanted. Instead of filling our
minds with worry, we practiced joyful living.
 |
| Shaw family vacation. I'm the little squirt in the middle. |
Gloria Gaither
tells the story behind a song she wrote in 1971. By then, I was still
an innocent child, but second grade wise and more aware of world
events. It was yet another volatile time in history. Gaither says the
lyrics to “Because He Lives” came out of a deep sense of fear
about the future for her young family. The second verse expresses
her faith that God is still in control no matter the circumstances.
“How
sweet to hold a newborn baby, And feel the pride and joy he gives;
But greater still the calm assurance: This child can face uncertain
days because He Lives!”
The chorus is timeless for every
generation who faces “uncertain days.”
“Because He lives, I can face
tomorrow, Because He lives, all fear is gone; Because I know He holds
the future, And life is worth the living, Just because He lives!” http://youtu.be/tpwQO3ckqNI
At
five months or at 50 years, no matter what in the world is happening,
each trip around the sun is worth the living because He lives.
So, how does it feel to be 50? It
feels like I'm thankful for the good life my parents provided in the
midst of civil turmoil. It feels like a blessing to have raised my
own children with that same agenda in spite of more wars and worries.
It feels like there's hope for tomorrow even though this world has
gone crazy. In every generation there will be frightening events, but
I choose, as my parents did, to think on what is good and make good
memories. Look out 50's!
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