My Great Grandmothers Diary and The Comfort of the Scriptures
I’ve been given an incredible blessing.
My grandmother saved the diary of my great-grandmother, Viola, and after all these years it found its way into my hands. Its pages have carried me nearly a century into the past—almost thirty years before I was ever born.
Most entries are simple. She recorded the weather, daily chores, and the events of the day.
One page reads:
“Lindy’s baby still missing.”
March 9, 1932.
“Very cold and windy.”
Those few words instantly transport you into history. The Lindbergh baby kidnapping had captured the attention of the nation, and there it is—preserved in the quiet handwriting of an ordinary Christian woman.
But the deeper treasure isn’t history.
It is faith.
As the pages turn, the handwriting slowly grows weaker. You can almost watch sickness taking its toll. There are moments of fear, concern for her husband, and an awareness that she may not remain with him much longer. She wondered how he would manage without her. She grieved what she might leave behind.
And yet, through it all, there is an unwavering confidence in her Lord Jesus Christ.
Looking through those fading pages reminded me of the old Pace illustration of the aged couple reading the words of Christ:
“I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”
John 11:25–26
I imagine she hoped her own story would end much like theirs—growing old beside the man she loved until together they entered glory.
But the Lord had written another ending.
She died young.
Today, I mow and care for the cemetery where she rests beside my great-grandfather. Nearby lie my mother and many others I have loved. As I pass each stone, I am reminded that these markers are not monuments to defeat. They are memorials to promises.
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)
Our plans often do not unfold as we imagined. Our prayers are sometimes answered in ways we never expected. Our days can be shorter than we hoped or filled with sorrows we never anticipated.
But none of that catches God by surprise.
He knows our beginning and our end. He bottles our tears. He numbers our days. He wastes nothing in the life of one of His children.
Sometimes, while standing there among those graves, I think of the words, “joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17).
What a thought.
A young woman writing in pencil through pain… never knowing that generations later her testimony would still be speaking.
The cemetery is quiet.
The diary is worn.
The handwriting has faded.
But the promises of Christ have not.
One day, faith will become sight, and every child of God will discover that every page—even the painful ones—was written by the hand of a loving Father, who was preparing an eternal reunion that can never again be interrupted.