A “back table resource” that I had created I am making available here. Back table resources are usually pamphlets, tracts, ministry DVDs, and other items that were put on the back table at church for people to take if they were interested. I had created some booklets or pamphlets, one of which is reproduced here as a PDF. You may click on the picture of the cover to view a version of the contents in a new tab. Just close the tab when finished to return here.
On Mother’s Day, 2014, I gave a testimony at church, a summary really, that I called 84 years in 20 minutes. I was 63 at the time, and I was born when my mother was 21. Her life, and death, is an important part of my testimony, so I added the years of our two lives together at the time and summarized them both as a way of showing what God had been doing in my life up until then. You really can’t give much depth in any given area when you try to cover that much life in 20 minutes. Some of my friends had heard some very specific aspects of my testimony over the years and knew there were a lot of interesting stories behind so much of that summary. They asked me if I would be expounding more, over time, about some of those things. I assured them I would. When I summarized my mother’s short life and the negative effect of my childhood on so much of my adult life and then on my own children’s early years, I was trying to make a point that is very important to me. How we raise our children echoes down the generations, good or bad. I had no idea how that talk would be received and have since been encouraged by people who were ministered to by different aspects of it. I also learned that some people were surprised that the limitations imposed by childhood issues affected me for so long later in life. I am surprised that they didn’t know that childhood issues can do that. I guess I thought everybody knew. Hurting people hurt people. Adults are better equipped to deal with it or get away from it. Children, especially at home, are so often captive audiences with no way to keep these wounds from going deep.
Another “legacy” project I had done was a book of my original poetry to leave my children as something they could have and hold long after I was gone which would actually reflect a part of me. The poems that I selected for this project spanned 40 years from my twenties to my sixties and cover a variety of reasons for having been written. I thought it would be interesting for them to have a printed paperback book of these so that is what I did.