People I Can't Wait to Meet in Heaven

I'm doing a lot of cleaning up (and cleaning out) of stuff, including lots of old papers and pictures that were my Daddy's. I ran across some stuff from Granddaddy's Book of Remembrance that I haven't read in forever. I love this stuff.

This is an excerpt that my great-grandmother Emma (Daddy's grandmother, Granddaddy's mother) wrote to the church paper. The "little 15 year old Robert" mentioned is my granddaddy. I love this. I love being able to claim a strong Christian family. I want to make them proud, and I am proud to have them.

Will, Robert, and Emma Rash

"Dear Brother Richards:
"It is with a thankful heart I wish to write a few lines to tell about our wonderful meeting at Waco yesterday. Two deacons were ordained. Then Elders Childers and Watts preached so good for us, it sure was a heavenly place on earth to me, for my little 15 year old Robert came home to the dear old church. I asked him about a month ago what his evidence was, he said he heard me singing 'Jesus, thou art the sinners friend,' and something came over him that he wanted to join the church. He said to me, 'Mamma, don't you remember Grandma read in the Bible to remember thy Creator in the day of thy youth?' But first of all, six years ago he lay at the point of death in the hospital. The old Sisters came and knelt around him with a black cross in their hand, but last night he saw a white cross. Some of the children asked him if he was going to be a [C]hristian, he answered very proudly that we was going to be an Old Baptist.
"Oh dear Lord, let me so live that he will always want to live in the church and follow in thy footsteps.
"Mrs. Emma Rash
"Lorena, Texas"

And so he did.

Here are some of his memories about that time, written in his book of remembrances to me (reading this book always makes me cry, so forgive the typos):

"I know there is a God because A presence outside of human stayed beside me during a number of serious illnesses. I did not know that it was God, but it had to be He. He told me many times that He would not take me from those I loved. He also convinced me that all humanity must die or be transformed when time is no more in order to gain immortality."

"The first time I knew God was real I thought that he was angel sent from God. Occasion--I was 7 years old and dying of ruptured appendix. God sent the good surgeon to pull me from the brink."

"The things my mother taught me about God That is God--only one God. Love Him and His Son with all your heart. Have faith in Him because without faith, it is impossible to please Him."

And my favorite: "I experienced a turning point in my faith when I was 14. Primitive Baptists beleive that you must be born again to be with Him forever. I was lying on a grassy bank of the Bullhide Creek in the shade of a weeping willow when a ray of sunshine found its way through the leaves. It seemed to say, 'You are Mine. Come.'"