REPENTANCE

For encouragement and humor I find myself often going to some of my mother’s writings.  In her self-published book, “My First Sixty-Seven Years,” that my mother wrote in 1985, she includes this occurrence in her young life on the farm in Kentucky.  It is one of her stories that you might enjoy and maybe even identify with……

REPENTANCE

My first deliberate crime was thievery.  Each summer it was a special day when we had our first blackberry cobbler.  So, one day Mama told Catherine and me that if we could find enough berries ripe, she would make a cobbler.  We went out to see if we could find ripe berries.  We found some, but not enough, along a fence row that was grown up in berry bushes.  Just across the road, along a fence row that belonged to a great uncle of ours, we could see there were more ripe berries.  After talking it over, we picked them too.  We assured each other and ourselves that Uncle Jontie wouldn’t care.  So, we had enough for a berry pie, and I suppose everyone enjoyed it but me.  I began to feel guilty for stealing the berries.  Try as I would, I could not shake off the feeling of guilt.  I would feel better during the day, but at night I would lie in bed and tremble at the fear of going to HELL.  I was so scared I even learned the Lord’s Prayer.