Читать книгу When God Calls, You Will Answer! - George A. Ross - Страница 6

The spring time in Bay City, Texas is a time when the grass is green and the trees, flowers and gardens are all in bloom. This time of the year always brings all kinds of exciting things for children to do. When we were little, we loved to explore the fields, pastures and the ponds and streams. We would snake hunt, excited to see how many snakes we could find and kill in a full day.

Blackberry season was in full bloom and we would gather the berries for my mother and grandmother to bake blackberry dumplings and pies. We would set out early in the morning to start picking berries. Once we got to the Catties farm, we would be looking for a way to cool off from our berry picking. There was a long pond on their property that provided an excellent place for swimming. There would be snakes in the pond when we began to swim but after making a lot of noise, we could see the snakes start moving up onto the bank. We would all have a great time cooling off by swimming across the length of the pond and back. I swam face-to-face with a water snake once, fortunately, I went one way and he went another. We were kids having fun and fear never even entered our minds, just as long as no one was hurt.

We would swim with our cousins, the Whites, and with Nelson Miller when he would come visit us. Our parents would give us money to go to the public swimming pool but instead, we’d take the money and buy ourselves a cola and a moon pie; then we’d go to the canal and swim. The canal was irrigation for the rich fields located all over town. Bay City was known for their rich fields and their rich dryer. We would go to the canal and as we swam and made lots of noise the same thing happened when we swam at the pond at Catties; the water snakes would start leaving. You would think that in all the time we were around snakes growing up, that someone would have been snake bitten. We knew that snakes were dangerous but as kids and as outgoing as we were, this never seemed to worry us. I know now that God was watching over us because we had praying parents. James 5:16 teaches us, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” When a child is covered by their parents’ prayers, God honors the prayers of the righteous. So through it all, I believe that God always had His hands on me and kept me from harm.