Dearly Begotten

After my sister died last year, my wife and I flew out to Indiana to empty her storage unit and haul it all back to California by truck . In the over four months since, we have been going through everything: trashing, recycling, shredding, and/or donating items as appropriate. It’s been an arduous task, but finally our house is regaining some semblance of normalcy (meaning I still have my things to trash, recycle, shred, and/or donate as appropriate).

Included in box after box from storage were hundreds of family treasures; not gold and silver, but old photos, documents. family writings, and truly historical artifacts. Specifically, things like souvenirs from the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, newspapers announcing the end of World War II, a newspaper from 1901 detailing the death of my grandmother’s brother-in-law during the “Philippine Insurrection,” and accounts of my family’s wanderings such as stories of one great-great-grandmother sailing to America from Germany in 1864 (while another ancestor was being wounded repelling the Confederates from their attack on Washington, DC).

We found so much that we needed to put in order, that we joined a couple online genealogy sites to flesh out our family trees by building on earlier attempts to do so. I had already drawn several trees for a project back in junior high or late grade school (talk about ancient documents!), but they needed correcting and updating.

It’s taking a lot of time and effort, but we have been enjoying the work; we’ve been detectives, solving who was related to whom and how, and what they did in their lifetime. From all this study, we’ve found lots of fascinating stories:

1. Two ancestors from different lines, both wounded in the leg during the Civil War and carrying the bullets the rest of their lives.
2. A grandmother who was a concert soloist and was offered the chance to study music in Italy, but turned it down to marry my grandfather. (Which proves not every good gene gets passed down to your grandchildren.)
3. One ancestor murdered by counterfeiters when he discovered them.
4. Great-grandparents living in a sod-house on the Kansas prairie.
5. A great-grandmother saving her paper dolls during the Chicago Fire of 1871.
6. The first Eddy coming to America in 1630 on the last of the Pilgrim ships: the Handmaid.
7. The death of one ancestor during another pandemic in 1918.

It’s been fascinating to not only read about events like these, but to do so in the handwriting of family who have gone before. I joke to Karen that we need to establish a museum to preserve and exhibit all these treasures!

But, as wonderful as learning about family can be, it has had a sobering effect on me, sometimes leaving me drained emotionally and mentally. It’s done so because of the weight of all those lives, lived over the centuries, but now gone from the earth. As I plug in birth and death dates for each relative I am reminded of the temporary nature of life. It reminds me of reading parts of the book of Genesis in the King James Version, such as chapter 5 with its repeated formula: “so-and-so lived and begat so-and-so and then he died.” For example:

“And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos: And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died. And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan: And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years: and he died.” (Genesis 5:5-11)

All my family down to and including all my aunts and uncles, are dead and buried. Now even my sister is gone, and looking ahead, I know that one day this century my own leaf on the family tree will receive its last notation. How depressing is that!

And yet, there’s something else I have found and been encouraged by, one fact that inspires and actually overcomes the sad notes of loss and the temporary nature of life on this earth: almost all of my family were, or are, Christians. There is a thread of faith that winds its way down through the various family lines and generations, from parent to child, and from our family to others. Besides the many statements connected with eulogies and gravestones, there are letters, testimonies, and artifacts that celebrate Christ:

1.  An article in German celebrating the life of one great-great-grandmother who came to faith in Germany before coming to America and joined a church in Chicago immediately upon arrival. It said that in spite of much suffering at the end of her life, she had einen unerschütterlichen Glauben, that is, an unshakeable faith in God.
2. A stranger who walked into my parents’ 50th Anniversary party and thanked my dad for bringing him to faith when the man was a student in my dad’s Sunday School class – 50 years earlier.
3. Speaking of Sunday School, we found a 10-year Perfect Attendance pin.
4. We have photos of South Dakota in the late 1800s taken by one great-grandfather who was a Methodist Circuit Rider and minister in that area.
5. Another line that included a Lutheran bishop in Stuttgart, Germany.
6. There’s the statement from one genealogist that there has never been a generation of Eddy’s without a pastor.

These evidences mean so much to me, for not only did so many relatives live lives here on earth in ways that honored Christ and sought to obey his Word, but their faith in God’s promises means that their lives did not end when they left this earth. It means they are even now in the presence of the One they believed in. It also means that one day, their gravestones will need a new date added: the date of their resurrection. On that day, Christ will return with a shout and call the vast numbers from every family and lineage forth from their graves, some to judgment, and others to eternal life. It gives me joy to anticipate the resurrection of the many ancestors I never got to meet: what a family reunion that will be!

I’d like to close with a poem I found from the pen of a grandmother* I was too young to know before she died, but whom I expect to one day meet. I found this poem in her handwriting among the papers we saved:

We know that our works don’t save us; that is the result of God’s grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. But how much better would life be for us and for the world around us if everyone sought to please God by our “Kind Words. Loving Acts, and Christian Living”?  And how much better our family relationships and legacy might be if we taught the next generations to believe and love Christ and seek to follow his commands? There is a reason God commanded us to do so in places such as Leviticus 10:11, Deuteronomy 6:7, Matthew 28:20, John 14:15, and John 14:21.

Eventually the day will come when God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). Thanks be to God for that promise, and for the gift of eternal life through his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

And now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Genesis 5, Leviticus 10:11, Deuteronomy 6:7, Matthew 28:20, John 14.

*The same grandmother who gave up studying music in Italy.