In later years, when I had become an adult with my own children, was married to a man that my mother viewed as very successful, I believe that my mother grew ashamed of her actions of having beat me and called me names–her form of punishment.
She observed me guiding and disciplining my and my husband’s children,
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Generosity of spirit requires trust–faith that what you give will be received and appreciated and /or conveys assistance or good, and belief that in giving you will not go lacking.
Certainly we must give within our means, not more than we can afford. Altruism does not ask that we put ourselves at risk. To do that places us in a position to lack the ability to give in the future. And no one wants that.
And yet we cannot always wait until comfort
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My mother was proud the July afternoon I married. The day before Independence Day, July 3rd, 1982, I marched down the aisle of the church in which my mother and her mother had been faithful members.
Though I had not joined the congregation I attended services. I had chosen membership with my father’s church. The decision had been simple enough. Couples much like my parents comprised the congregations of both churches.
The town in which the two churches existed, where my mother had grown up was
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My mother was straight and to the point.
I did not always like her brash tone. Nor did I like her unwavering directness.
Then again, my mother grew up during The Great Depression. Born in 1920, she was but nine years old when the Crash of ’29 (1929) occurred.
I remember her describing how they all went to bed, she and her five other siblings, my grandmother had not yet given birth to her youngest child, went to bed and upon waking the next morning discovered, along with reading in the local newspaper, thousands of people who had to that point, held much money, were now poor same as my mother and her family.
Some of these people lived in small town in southeastern North Carolina where my mother grew up.
This proved, I gathered over the many years I heard my mother tell this story, an eye-opening moment for her.
Not only did she grow up poor, my mother saw
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