The Lawd is Good!

I drove over to Reynolds last week on the July 4th holiday to visit Jessie Mae King. Jessie turned 99 years old on March 16th. She never ceases to amaze me. I had to bend way down to hug her and kiss her on the cheek. She is less than 5 feet tall. I’m about 6’5”. I walked in the door and she started grinning and said, “There’s my Brucie”.

Jessie began working for my family in 1942. She cooked the best fried chicken I’ve ever eaten (My brother George liked the pork chops). I’ve also never had beef stew as good as hers …and the ho-cake cornbread would make you slap your grandma.

There is no telling how many hours she spent with all of us Goddard chillun, as she would say. She never got in a big hurry about anything. She would spend 15 minutes ironing a shirt. Of course she would have to stop a few times per shirt to chase one of us down. It was nothing for her to break a limb off the peach tree and wear one of us out. There is no doubt we earned each stripe.

She also always talked about how good the Lawd is. She still does.

I have two brothers and a sister. We are a close knit family. We all go in many different directions and squeeze every drop out of the "orange" of life. Hopefully we have impacted a few people in a positive way along the way. We owe a lot to our parents who spent their lives investing their lives in their children.

But make no mistake about it. We also owe a lot to Jessie Mae King. We all carry a piece of her with us wherever we go.

I’m glad I went to see her last Tuesday. And I'm glad she still remembered.

We sure do.

The Lawd IS good, ain’t He?