Switched at Birth Part 1

 

The picture  is me in first grade.  I was crying because the photographer tried to make me take off my glasses and mom and had told me not to do that.

Psalm 139 speaks of us being fearfully and wonderfully made by God. Today as I was doing errands, I got to thinking of all that has happened in my life. It is a miracle that I am even here. I want to share part of my story with you today. I'll call it "Switched at Birth Part 1" 

My parents had one child and then mom lost the next child. After nine years God heard their prayers and gave them me. When it came time for me to go home from the hospital I was switched with another baby. God let my mother know that she had the wrong child and she insisted  to the nurse that she had brought her the wrong baby and that was true. By the time I was 4 years of age, my parents knew something was wrong. I could not walk across the floor without falling over my two feet. Thanks to the Lions Club, I got glasses to correct for my very crossed eyes. I also had a speech defect. So in first and second grade I had to go to a speech specialist at my school. I hated it because I had to miss part of my class for that day. 

My Dad was ordained as a Baptist minister when I was 4. His pay was about $25 a week. So he and mom worked in the cotton mills to make ends meet. I learned from them during this time that I was loved and God provides. Mom made most of my cloths from seconds that cost just a few cents a yard and Dad's sister gave her fabric many times. We always had Bible Study and prayer each night. So, I learned what the Bible taught at an early age.

 My first grade Easter is one I'll never forget. I had the chicken pox for the second time along with the German Hard measles. I didn't get to go to church that Sunday. Mom taught me my Sunday School lesson in bed and gave me the sugar marshmallow chicks to eat. 

During an August revival the summer between my 1st and 2nd grades, God touched my heart during the revival and since I often slept during preaching at church, I told mom that if I was sleeping at invitation time to please wake me up. I didn't fall asleep that night. I went forward and prayed for Jesus to come into my heart. A couple of nights later, my younger sister (15 months younger) and I were left in the pew as mom went to help share the gospel with people who were coming forward. I knew what the Bible taught about baptism. I pulled my sister one pew at a time until we were at the front pew. I seated her on the front pew and went forward to ask for baptism. I was later baptized in a river. My Dad, who had quite school in 6th grade, finished Bible school by 2nd grade year. By October, he had accepted a new church and we moved way up in the mountains of NC. 

 In the church he pastored the children set up front, women on one side and men on the the other side of the church. Things I recall from there are that on the last day of Vacation Bible School, they mixed all the Kool-aid that was brought into on big pot and it was black or deep brown. There was a young man in a wheel chair who lived across he street from the church and dad made sure he got to come to church. I got bee stung during service one night and a lady form the church took mom and I to her house and put tobacco on the sting and I didn't have a bad reaction as I normally did to stings. That church voted on the pastor every year. I recall being in the car waiting for the results of the vote. The roads were gravel and if meeting another vehicle the smaller had to back to the nearest drive and let the other pass. Heavy rains caused flooding and since the school was on an island in the middle of the French Broad River, we had a week off from school. We didn't know it had flooded and wondered why the school bus had not come that morning. We rented a house from a family that went on down the road and lived in a log cabin where often snakes with get in on the logs. They needed the rent money. By the way we stayed until I was in fourth grade. 

During this time I learned that God loved even me and it didn't matter that I wore glasses or sometimes still had problems with certain words in my speech. More to come in Switched a Birth 2.