This week we welcome Rose Allen McCauley to Author Memories.
Rose Allen McCauley is happy to live in the beautiful bluegrass region of Kentucky on a farm surrounded by God’s creation. She has been writing for over ten years and has been published in several non-fiction anthologies and devotionals. She is thrilled for this to be her first published fiction because Christmas books are her favorites.
A retired schoolteacher who has been happily married to her college sweetheart for over 43 years, she is also mother to three grown children and their spouses and Mimi to three lovely, lively grandkids!
A retired schoolteacher who has been happily married to her college sweetheart for over 43 years, she is also mother to three grown children and their spouses and Mimi to three lovely, lively grandkids!
A Precious Gift
by Rose Allen McCauley
As the oldest of seven children with an alcoholic father, my siblings and I had very few worldly possessions. Much of what we did have was given to us by church members or our grandparents. Since there were so many of us and so few possessions, after our parents died we divided up mainly small mementoes. Each of us daughters received one of my mom’s butterfly pins and got to choose the pictures that were special to us. I was surprised and pleased when my younger sisters decided that as the oldest I should have the family Bible.
This Bible is falling apart, held together with love and tape. The cover is black with faded gold embossing of a design and this verse on the front cover: “The Law of the Lord is perfect; the Precepts of the Lord are right; the Testimony of the Lord is sure; the Commandment of the Lord is pure.” There are gold index markers with the names of the books of the Bible on them running up and down the sides of the pages, so as I look through it, I place my thumbs on the same worn tabs my grandmother and mother’s thumbs used to guide them through God’s Word.
This Bible is falling apart, held together with love and tape. The cover is black with faded gold embossing of a design and this verse on the front cover: “The Law of the Lord is perfect; the Precepts of the Lord are right; the Testimony of the Lord is sure; the Commandment of the Lord is pure.” There are gold index markers with the names of the books of the Bible on them running up and down the sides of the pages, so as I look through it, I place my thumbs on the same worn tabs my grandmother and mother’s thumbs used to guide them through God’s Word.
My grandmother had bought this Bible from a traveling salesman in 1952 when I was only three years old. The Bible bears my grandmother’s and my mother’s handwriting of births and deaths and marriages and other milestones in our family. It is also the only record I have of my great-grandparents’ names. I can remember as a young girl reading Grandma’s Bible when I would visit her, and especially enjoying the bluish colored pictures telling the life of Jesus and a section with colored pictures of the Holy Land. This Bible also bears several passages underlined by my mother that encouraged her.
To someone else this Bible might not look like much. It might even be thrown away or put out of sight. But in my home, this Bible is placed on a bookshelf with pictures of my mother and other family members around it. It is tenderly handled with love for those who went before and our Lord Who had guided us down through the generations as our Heavenly Shepherd.
To someone else this Bible might not look like much. It might even be thrown away or put out of sight. But in my home, this Bible is placed on a bookshelf with pictures of my mother and other family members around it. It is tenderly handled with love for those who went before and our Lord Who had guided us down through the generations as our Heavenly Shepherd.
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if you want to be entered to win a copy of Rose's book,
Christmas Belles of Georgia.
Name will also go in the draw for the Welcome Prize Giveaway.
if you want to be entered to win a copy of Rose's book,
Christmas Belles of Georgia.
Name will also go in the draw for the Welcome Prize Giveaway.
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Christmas Belles of Georgia, Barbour Books
back cover blurb:
Surprised by Life—and Love—at Christmas
Four letters are mailed from Monticello, a small antebellum town in Georgia. Sisters once, now heirs to a historic plantation, each young woman must come to terms with the circumstances of her birth. . . .
When she learns in a letter she’s adopted, Holly feels betrayed by her parents—and she books a flight out of Missouri immediately. Will she ever be able to love again?
Raised in a wealthy, loveless home, Carol rushes to Monticello from college in Atlanta when she receives her letter. She’s searching for family, but finds instead a boy she once mistreated. Will he remember her? . . .forgive her?
In one year, Starr has lost her parents, boyfriend, and job, so she’s sure her letter is more bad news. When the attorney flies to California to offer proof, Starr takes a second look—at the message and the man.
Noelle always knew she was adopted—and she’s always loved the foreman on her father’s Texas ranch too. But he’s so distant. . .perhaps a trip to Georgia is the break in life she needs.
Will the sisters receive a traditional Christmas gift. . .of love?
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You can reach Rose through her
website at www.rosemccauley.com or
blogsite at www.rosemccauley.blogspot.com
You can reach Rose through her
website at www.rosemccauley.com or
blogsite at www.rosemccauley.blogspot.com
