By Brenda Cannon Henley
In our study of 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13, we have learned that the 13 verses that make up this important portion of Scripture have been tagged and is often called “the love chapter” of the Bible. God thought it important that we have these thoughts and that we take time to study them and determine how we can best apply them to our own hearts and lives. It is not always easy to love another human being or to be able to truly give to them from the bottoms of our hearts and the depths of our souls. Some folks are just difficult to trust or love.

My Mama Cole had the major part of rearing me as a young child. She had a lot of funny sayings and old quotes. I regret that I did not stop and write some of them down when she said them so that I could have them at my own disposal. Some were funny and some were very funny. I think it probably was the manner in which she said the words and the look on her face that gave them the dramatic quality and caused me to remember them for years. She was old school all the way and did not often make fun of anyone or call attention to a personality flaw or character defect.

I remember late one afternoon she was walking in the back screen porch door from her beautiful garden, which she tended each year and she was shaking her head and muttering. I asked what she had said, and she shrugged it off, but did add to my amazement that Mrs. So and So (our neighbor woman) would drive the hair off of a billy goat, and further amazing me, she said, “I sure hope the Lord doesn’t make me her neighbor in Heaven. I would hate to spend eternity with that old biddy.”

For Mama Cole, that was practically indecent and the closest I had heard her come to being really critical of a neighbor or friend. I never did find out what old Mrs. So and So had done, but I rather suspect that it was her way of appearing by the fresh growing vegetables when Mama Cole was tending them and hinting broadly that she and her family would sure enjoy a mess of beans, fresh tomatoes, or cucumbers. They wouldn’t enjoy them enough to help hoe the ground, plant the seed, weed the plants, or see that they were watered every afternoon that we did not have rain.

Mama Cole was a courteous person and would usually give the shirt off her back or the apron tied on the front of her outfit to anyone that asked nicely. She believed in being nice and not causing talk as she referred to it all my life. She would often say to me when I was leaving, “Remember who you are and whose you are.” That would firmly put the fear of God into my heart about calling any bad attention to the Cole or Cannon name. Courtesy and respect were not just words in her dictionary of life. She meant them and meant her children and grandchildren would honor them, too.

Courtesy is simply being nice or not acting out of line or out of school. If we are courteous to others, we are kind to others. We put them first and offer our help as we can. Professor Drummond calls courtesy, “love in society,” and “love in relationship to good etiquette.” Courtesy is said to be, “love in little things.”

Editor’s Note – May I encourage you that if you still have grandparents, great grandparents, or older aunts and uncles living, take time to sit down with them with a notepad and pen, a video camera, or a recorder, and capture their stories while you can. These reminders of the past will be a blessing to you in later years.
[6-5-2017]

Brenda Cannon Henley can be reached at (409) 781-8788, or
[email protected].