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Monday, 23 January 2023

Connections through the years

 

Connections. I’ve started prepping for a possible quick trip to Germany in March. I have a friend who lives there and has offered to translate as I hope to research our Steenbock forbears.

Last night I got lost in the pages of a 1920 census in Nebraska. I didn’t find anyone I was looking for, and scanning a myriad of names scrawled in various levels of penmanship was wearing.

Other family members have done amazing jobs of tracing my mother’s ancestors right back to the 16th century, and my father’s mother’s ancestors back to the 15th century. But the Steenbock line starts in 1892 when they boarded the ship in Hamburg.

I found myself wondering last night why I was doing this. Does it matter? Does anyone else really have an interest in this? But when I reflect that each of those names represents someone God knows intimately, and knew from the womb, I am blown away. To me they are names: to God they are precious individuals with gifts and personalities and hopes and dreams, now moved on from this world into the next.

Connections. The opening chapters of Mark and Luke detail Jesus’ ancestral line. Connections matter to God. Who knows but that I am a Christian today because of the prayers of one of these names on the pages? I pray for my grandchildren and on down the years, that they will know the living God and worship Jesus the Saviour.

 

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