My father’s sister grew up on the family farm, and there were remnants in the house of the lives of previous owners. One such “remnant” was a small spinning wheel which, though it had no use in her lifetime, was a reminder of an earlier generation. After Aunt Edna left home the wheel was moved out and she never knew what became of it; but Edna one day found an exact copy in an antique store, and purchased it as a memory of her childhood wheel. Much later the spinning wheel came to belong to me and now shares my living room with contemporary and antique furniture.

The spinning wheel is like a magnet to children. Each one wants to try the use the treadle. I must have explained it to dozens of little ones and it never ceases to fascinate. I like it as a reminder of the past, of my Aunt, and of the farm.

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. ( Deuteronomy 6:6-9)

This charge to Israel is for the people to enlist their memories to preserve their relationship with the Living God, the author of their freedom from bondage and their arrival at the Promised Land. The memories could be born anew in each generation by following this advice. In a mostly illiterate community these activities would convey history and give context to the present.

Once a five year old boy looked at my spinning wheel and, walking slowly around it, he said, “Where do you get parts for something like this?” I almost laughed out loud, but then I became conscious of the enormity of the gap between past and present generations.

The only book that truly fills the gap is the Bible itself: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. . . ( Second Timothy 3:16) It’s the quiet time, like the time spent at the spinning wheel, that opens our spirits to God’s words for our lives. Hanging copies of the law around our houses, and talking constantly of the law will no longer suffice, for God has sent His Word,revealed in His Book Time spent in reading it can bridge every gap in our lives. And new”parts” will appear every day.

Love in Him, ,

Prue