Januar 6

"As for your treasured ones, You fill their womb with treasure; they are satisfied with children, and they leave their abundance to their infants." (Ps 17:14 NIV)

My grandmother Axelina, who I never had the opportunity to meet myself, had seven children. Many of them immigrated to the United States in the beginning of the 20th century, and I have had the privilege to read some of the exchange of letters sent across the Atlantic Ocean at that time. Grandma wrote to her children that she needed money here in Sweden and the emigrants continuously sent home a substantial part of their income earned in the new country. When Axelina’s sons had been in the US for five or six years, she wrote to them and told them that the house needed painting and that she is longing for them, hoping that they will soon return home. Grandma was eager to see them again.

Shortly thereafter one of her sons, an uncle to me, writes and shares that he has had a “call” to become a Salvation Army officer and that he will stay in America and begin training at the School for Officers’ Training. He wrote about his new commitment to God; “I no longer own myself, everything belongs to God”. He wrote that he is finally at peace now that he has placed everything in God’s hands. As I read those words I thought, “poor grandma Axelina!” It would be another eight years before he would be able to return home to Sweden again. But Axelina wrote back to her son: “May God help you and lead you to become a great blessing. Once, when we almost lost you, I prayed that my children would live and bring blessings to the world. Now I thank God for answered prayer and I pray for you.”

And God Himself helped Axelina. Her children and grandchildren were blessed, and I am one of them, and I am fortunate to live in the center of the fulfillment of her answered prayers for blessings.

Prayer
We thank you Jesus for our ancestors, those who went before us. I thank you for the ones who prayed for me and blessed me. Thank you that I may live today in the fulfillment of their intercessions.