My Home Town: Family Values

     When I think of my hometown, I see Okmulgee, Oklahoma.  While growing up, I would spend each summer with my grandmother there.  I see my family.  I see my grandmother's church, which we attended four to five times a week.  I see the church van, which drove around the small town picking up youth for Sunday school.  Eastside Baptist Church is the most memorable place that comes to mind.  I loved being a part of the youth choir, going to Bible study, Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, church musicals and events, and sitting in the pews while my grandmother attended adult choir rehearsals.  My church attendance was never forced.  I truly enjoyed every moment, and the church community helped me to get to know the Lord at an early age.  I was about five years old when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and was baptized.  Some churches, nowadays, do not allow children to be baptized, but even at such a young age I truly believed in the Lord and in eveything I was being taught in church.  Although I had not been through many trials or tribulations, I was sure of the happiness and peace I felt in my heart when the choir sang, and when I sang with the youth choir.  The music was like the sound of heaven in my ears, and I used to clap my hands, stomp my feet, and dance like the Lord and I were the only ones in the room during worship. 
     My grandmother, who was fighting cancer, passed away from an aneurism three days after I turned 16.  During my teenage years, I did stray away from the Lord.  But I am thankful the seed of Christ was planted in my heart at an early age.  No matter where I go in life, or what I go through, I will always return to the love and happiness I was introduced to by my grandmother.  I will always lean to Christ for strength in hard times, and I will give thanks through it all because as an adult I know things could always be worse. 
     I miss my grandmother, and I miss her house.  My grandmother's house was the place to be.  All of my cousins would come over just about everyday, so we all grew up more like brothers and sisters.  I have so many great memories of all of us playing tag, racing, catching fireflies, dancing, singing, playing hide and seek, and just talking with one another.  My aunts and uncles would frequently visit, as well.  My grandmother's house was like home for our entire family, and I am so thankful to have been born into my family and to have experienced the strong love of such a close knit family.