Welcome to The Journey, Podcast. I’m Teddy Lynn. And today I wanna share a short story with you from early on in my journey.
I guess I was about nine, or ten years old at the time. I lived in a small town in Mississippi called Theo, with my grandmother, and two of my younger sisters. The town was only a few square miles in size, so we could walk to the store, or walk to visit our aunt or any of the neighbors my grandmother decided to visit. We didn’t have a car, but our aunt did so if we needed to go outside our little community, she would take us.
One day, we walked to the store, and as we headed back home, we stopped to visit one of the neighbors, who was friends with my grandmother. They had known each other for many years. She was cooking the next meal for her family, so she invited us inside to visit while she was cooking.
She asked my grandmother if we would like to stay and eat with them. My grandmother thanked her for the invitation and accepted it. I was thinking okay, sure, I’m a little hungry. I could eat something. She said “We’re having chicken. Shake ‘n Bake chicken.” She really had my attention then, because I loved chicken.
We were good kids, at least in other people’s homes. We were taught to be quiet and not interrupt while grownups were talking, so we sat still and were quiet, for the most part, as the adults talked and laughed.
Then she started to prepare the chicken to cook. Back then it was cheaper to buy a whole chicken, and cut it up yourself before cooking it, so that’s what she did first. Then she washed the pieces of chicken and put them in a bowl.
Then she put the Shake ‘n Bake mix in the bag and dropped a few pieces of chicken into the mix. Then, she proceeded to put the bag to her mouth and blow into it like a balloon, filling it with air from her mouth. Then she started shaking it to coat the chicken with the breading.
“Oh God! Help me Jesus! Please get me out of here.” That’s kind of what I was screaming in my mind. There was no way I was gonna eat that chicken, after what I had just seen. I couldn’t tell them I didn’t wanna eat it because I thought what she had done was nasty, but I couldn’t even imagine eating it. So I told my grandmother I wanted to go home. I insisted, and persisted. I told her I didn’t feel good, and I really didn’t, not after what I had just witnessed. I begged her, “Please, let’s go home. Please.” I begged and pled with her until she finally gave in, and we went home.
In Luke 18:1-8, Jesus told a parable about a Persistent Widow. In verse 1, he tells us the meaning of the parable is that we should always pray, and not give up before we get an answer.
1st Thessalonians 5:17, says to “Pray without stopping.” We need to be in a constant state of prayer. We need to keep our connection with God open at all times, not only when we need something, or want something. He’s always there, so we can talk to him all day long, just like we would with any other friend.
We may not always get the answer we want, and the answer may not come immediately, but when we have some specific need, we should keep asking, until he answers us. That’s the spiritual lesson I gleaned from this memory of my childhood.
Thank you for listening to my first Podcast. I hope you enjoyed it, and come back for more. At this point, I plan to post on a weekly basis but that may change. I’d like to invite you to visit my blog at Teddy Lynn dot blog spot dot com, or, teddy Lynn dot Word Press dot com for more stories like this.
Thank you for joining me on this journey. See you next time. Until then, may God bless you, on your journey.
The Journey 