Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Your stories can help others through the coronavirus pandemic


At a time like this, when people around the world are frightened and grieving over the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic, your stories can inspire courage. And tenacity. And faith. And hope. And practical, ingenious solutions in trying times—but only if you share your stories.

Below is an account I included in a collection of family stories for my grandkids, hoping it will help them somehow, somewhere, someday, in the same way my grandmother’s and mother’s stories helped me in an especially trying time.



“Mommy, tell us a story about the olden days!”

I wonder how many times my mother heard those excited words from my little brothers and me over the years. And she enjoyed telling us stories from her childhood. We loved sitting close to her and imagining scenes she created for us.

Many of her stories were from the 1930s, set in southeastern Ontario, Canada, in a farming area known as Glengarry County, the home of a number of Scotsmen and their families.

The Depression hit their lives very hard. Mom tells of having to wear shoes that were too small, shoes that left her feet disfigured. Grandpa worked the family farm and he also served as the postman, but still money was scarce. They raised chickens and cows and grew vegetables but sometimes their cupboards were nearly bare. I imagine that was especially true in winter months.

I also know that my grandparents knelt to pray every night before bed. I’m certain they prayed to God to keep their four daughters from going hungry during those lean years.

I remember one of my mother’s stories more vividly than others. She told about a time when their parents’ food supply had dwindled down to almost nothing, and they worried terribly. On one of those days, Grandma cooked a pot of soup for their family of six. I can picture her slicing up carrots and potatoes, and maybe an onion, maybe a piece of meat, or a soup bone. Maybe she put in dried beans, too.

Mom told us that the next day, all Grandma had for her family was that same soup but it wasn’t enough, so she added a carrot or two. The next day, the soup was still all they had so Grandma added a potato, or maybe an onion. This went on day after day and eventually Grandpa got a paycheck from the post office so they could buy groceries.

My mother must have thought of those days often when she was a young adult because sometimes our family had almost no food in our cupboards. Mom followed in her mother’s footsteps: She poured out her needs to God and she boiled a pot of soup. Each day she stretched it by adding an extra carrot or potato or onion, or maybe some of her canned tomatoes, while she told us the story of her mother stretching their soup in the same way back in the ’30s.

I grew up, married, and two years later had a baby, Matt. Twenty-two months later, our daughter Karen arrived more than a month early, unhealthy, and we ran up big medical bills. My husband, Dave, was a first-year teacher and our new health insurance wouldn’t cover Karen’s birth or extended hospital stay. 

In those days, 1971, Dave earned $7,200 a year, and we paid $90 a month for an old rental house. We had to be extremely frugal. I had one dress, one pair of jeans, one T-shirt, and I had scraped up enough money to buy turquoise polyester knit fabric to make myself a pants-suit.

We ate the cheapest food, never went to movies or restaurants, never spent money on hobbies. We bought only necessities, but money was still scarce.

In those days, we had no credit cards to see us through such times. Instead, we had to live within our means (which is not a bad thing; more people should try living that way).

In February, 1972, after we paid our bills on the first of the month, we had $28 left to buy food and everything else for the rest of the month. I was worried. I was stressed.

However, thanks to my mother’s story, I knew we could present our needs to God and that with His help we would make do with what we had, just like my mother and her mother before her. I assembled a big pot of soup: I had a soup bone with a little meat on it. I added carrots, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, and maybe some peas or corn. Each day for a week I thought of my dear grandma and my mother as I added a new ingredient—maybe rice or another potato or carrot.

And, indeed, we did make it through that week, and the rest of the month, until Dave got his paycheck the first of March.

God said,
“Be very careful never to forget
what you have seen the Lord do for you.
Don’t forget them as long as you live!
And be sure to tell your children and grandchildren.”
(Deuteronomy 4:9)

That’s what my grandmother and mother did!

My grandmother had shown her daughter, my mother, how to trust God and make the best of the resources He had given them. My mother remembered her mother’s example, trusted God, and made the pot of soup stretch, and, perhaps most importantly, she told me the story of how God provided for them. Because of that, I handled my own little family’s need for food in the same way they did—I trusted God and stretched our soup with the resources He provided. (From Come and Listen: Let Me Tell You What God Has Done for Me [Psalm 66:16] by Linda K. Thomas)


What stories can you write for your kids and grandkids about your grandparents battling on—not giving up—through heartbreaking times? How did God give them strength and courage to persevere?

What stories can you tell about your parents’ tenacity in confronting overwhelming challenges? What stories can you write about yourself when you were younger? What helped your parents and you trust God for what seemed impossible?

Did your great-grandparents live through the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918? How about the awful Great Depression? Do you know their stories?

What stories can you write for your family about World War I? Pearl Harbor? World War II? The Vietnam War? The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks—9/11? What was God’s role in the midst of those desperate times?

Your stories could make all the difference
in the way your family members tackle their own calamities.



Write your stories!







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