Amazing Grace How Sweet the Sound, this song the choir did sing. Another soul has flown away, borne on angel wings. For many years she guided us, Lending strength when we were weak, But her's was not a timid soul, nor was it mild and meek. "You must be strong to do God's work," My mama often said. "A weakling can't fight satan, or get a family fed." To Mama, there was two ways of living, One Satan's, the other God's. And heaven help us if we chose, the path most often trod. I can hear Mama now, as she told how the world had changed. How the youth today were so different, yet somehow much the same. Mama said, "Girl, there's a hard way and an easy, and easy ain't always the best. You gotta stand tall and strong, in order to meet the test. Oh yes, you gotta be strong my child, to weather all life's ills, Cause you are sure to encounter many, as you travel the long hard trail. Why, you've no idea, no conception at all, what life holds in store for you. Mine's been full of hard times, and joy, yes, and hard work too." Mama said, "I've worked all day in the fields, then came home to clean and cook. It was only when I had my babies, I ever had time to read a book. You know that all you children were born at home, there was no money for doctors or hospitals. That was a luxury reserved for the rich, not for no sharecropper's hovel." Mama said she often recalled, How her family toiled from dawn to dusk. And how hard it was to make a living, In the dry North Texas dust. "One year my papa left the farm, and in a covered wagon we made the trek. All the way to Portalis, New Mexico, then turned around and came right back! The farm land was much to dry, and mother hated the sod hut that was our home. So papa brought us back to Texas, and from then on he never roamed. Traveling, we cooked our meals on camp fires, and on the cold hard ground we slept. On those high plains there was no wood, so we fueled our fires with cow chips." Mama said, "coming down off the 'cap rock, it was a long, low ridge of stone. And all the towns they traveled through, on that long road back to home. Oh the trail was long and difficult, and conditions often bad. But camped one night in a wagon yard, was here I met your dad. A scant year later we were wed, and our own family we had started. But, the little one, bless her heart, two days later this life departed." Mama said, "the life of a sharecropper, is full of back breaking labor. I guess I wouldn't trade none of it though, for looking backward, my life I savor. What hurt the most was in the middle years, God called most of my children home. I wish it had been me He took, but I guess His reasons were His own." Mama said, "I often wondered, why ever the Lord saw fit. To take my children and leave me here. The puzzle just don't seem to fit." Now that I'm an old woman, I know, dear mama, why our Father did things His way. For His blessings He rained upon me, when He gave you those extra days. I'm sure He knew I needed a long time, for all those lessons to sink home. Time for me to grow and understand, why a woman must be strong.
mf
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