God won’t be reading this.

He’s too busy watching over his chosen few.

You know the type. Always “blessed”. Always proclaiming their countless blessings, to the world, specifically on social media.

Invariably, such blessings only qualify if they can be held in the hand, like, okay, say, the handle to the double doors of a converted Southern plantation, or the reins of a willing horse.

Sometimes, natural disaster strikes. Theirs is the only house spared. Another burst of thanksgiving, to the God who cares about them the most.

Being bailed out after stupid decision making, like surviving food poisoning after refusing to wash bagged big agra lettuce or successfully pooping after 48 hours of bareback riding? These, while qualified, rarely get any airtime; one mustn’t embarrass the God of All Creation, lest He be miffed and withhold future cloudbursts.

Somebody who loved so many and deigned to love me, too, provided what I’ve concluded is the meaning of being blessed by a God who is no respecter of persons. That person was Mammy Sweet, and she was my grandmother.

Mammy stayed home. She didn’t own a car. She didn’t have a driver’s license. While she was still able, she walked to Sunday morning meeting – down the block, left, then down the short hill to the church we all called the assembly hall because, English and Plymouth Brethren, the real church was the body of Christ according to Scripture.

When she wasn’t dressed for Sunday all day, she’d be up with the sun to put on her support hose, sturdy shoes, a cotton apron over her cotton shift, and be about the house and garden. There were rows and rows of vegetables to plant, harvest, can, and eat; there were roses and peonies to feed the bees, a plum and pear tree, and countless perennials close growing both near the trees and through the rock gardens out front. In winter, there was bread to bake, and rugs to braid, and clothes to alter or sew from scratch.

After a full day in sunlight, rest was defined by the rocker, near the phone, where she regularly called the family or wrote letters or prayed.

In her world, blessing was defined in small moments, undeclared and unobserved by anyone, recognized in silent smiles as the sun set through the criss crossing silken curtains. I like to think that, because she bloomed where she was planted, living a life of worship and work, she was blessed with length of days. In turn, those days provided the blessing for all who knew her, for every hour of her 98 plus years on the earth.

It didn’t matter who else knew. Her God saw, and was well pleased.

She read the Word, and held it in her heart.

Chosen? Maybe.

Favored?

Only God knows.

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© 7/30/21 Ruth Ann Scanzillo. All rights those of the author, whose story it is, and whose name appears above this line. Be blessed, and know it. God isn’t just your Show And Tell story.

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