\u00a0by Whit Sasser<\/p>\n
Cameron S. Smith tells a wonderful story. It is about the only white person in the state of Georgia buried in a cemetery reserved exclusively for African-Americans.<\/p>\n
This man had lost his mother when he was just a baby. His father, who never married again, hired a black woman named Mandy to help raise his son. She was a Christian woman who took her task seriously. Seldom has a motherless boy received such warmhearted attention. One of his earliest memories was of Mandy bending tenderly over him in his upstairs bedroom at the beginning of each day and softly saying, “Wake up — God’s mornin’ is come.”<\/p>\n
As the years passed this devoted woman continued to serve as his surrogate mother. The young man went away to college, but when he would come home on holidays and in the summer, she would still climb the stairs and call him in the same loving way. “Wake up — God’s mornin’ is come.”<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/graveyard-morning-sun-300x225.jpg\")
One day, after he had become a successful statesman, the sad message came: “Mandy is dead. Can you attend her funeral?” As he stood by her grave in the cemetery, he turned to his friends and said, “If I die before Jesus comes, I want to be buried right here beside Mandy. I like to think that on Resurrection Day she’ll speak to me again and say, ‘Wake up, my boy, God’s mornin’ is come!'”<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0by Whit Sasser Cameron S. Smith tells a wonderful story. It is about the only white person in the state of Georgia buried in a cemetery reserved exclusively for African-Americans. This man had lost his mother when he was just a baby. His father, who never married again, hired a black woman named Mandy to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,1028],"tags":[665,502,65,29,107,664,339],"class_list":["post-28197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","category-parenting","tag-child-rearing","tag-hope","tag-love","tag-parenting","tag-raising-children","tag-resurrection","tag-second-coming"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":32053,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-right-that-a-mother-doesnt-want-the-father-involved-in-their-childs-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":28197,"position":0},"title":"Is it right that a mother doesn’t want the father involved in their child’s life?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good evening, I have a friend who had sex outside of marriage and she had a child out of it. She feels\u00a0very strongly about not wanting the father to be in the child's life at all because he's not paying child support, he's not coming to visit his son\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":50346,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-a-husband-have-to-take-care-of-children-in-a-marriage-who-are-not-his\/","url_meta":{"origin":28197,"position":1},"title":"Does a husband have to take care of children in a marriage who are not his?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 4, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Does a husband have to take care of children in a marriage who are not his? Answer: When you marry a woman who has children from a prior marriage, you are accepting responsibility for those children. \"But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51985,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-i-wait-for-my-boyfriend-to-marry-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":28197,"position":2},"title":"Do I wait for my boyfriend to marry me?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am in my thirties. I have been in a relationship with my boyfriend for 15 years now. We have a child who is 8 years old now. My boyfriend left for another country when I was four months pregnant. I went through my pregnancy and had our child\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37222,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/who-is-responsible-for-a-child-born-out-of-wedlock\/","url_meta":{"origin":28197,"position":3},"title":"Who is responsible for a child born out of wedlock?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What if a guy has a child outside of his marriage with another woman? Is he still responsible, such as for child support? What if his wife knows but disapproves of the child growing up with their children? What if he has a child that he knows is his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":57928,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/like-arrows\/","url_meta":{"origin":28197,"position":4},"title":"Like Arrows","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Steve Higginbotham via Bulletin Briefs, Vol. 12, No. 4, April 2009. In Psalms 127:4, the inspired text has a fascinating comparison. Here it is written, \"Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are children of one's youth.\" From this simple simile, several significant and sobering truths shine\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Arrows.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":70533,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/a-high-value-man-is-a-worthy-man\/","url_meta":{"origin":28197,"position":5},"title":"A High Value Man Is a Worthy Man","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 25, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Perry Hall A term used in our modern culture to describe men and women is \"high value.\" Sadly, \"high value\" is not God's value. A \"high value\" man is judged based on income, height, looks, and other \"biblically low values.\" Also, a \"high value\" woman can look very little\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}