I have shared this story many years when I first started our blog. Since it was my Mamaw Pauline’s birthday two weeks ago, I wanted to share it again.
I spent a lot of my childhood at my Mamaw Pauline’s and Papaw Bill’s. I have so many fond memories from spending time at their house and I cherish each and every one. Mamaw was raised during the great depression and through her life experiences she learned not to be wasteful and kept things that many of us would often throw away. She would save old plastic bread bags and bread ties, small scraps of paper, and re-use her aluminum foil. She wasted nothing and held onto everything.
During our time there, Mamaw always had a way of entertaining us. She would pull out old puzzles with missing pieces that my aunt and dad played with when they were young, a bag of colorful ribbons that my sister Sabrina, my cousin Leah and I all played with, a stash of aprons that I would wear as skirts, a viewfinder with slides, a box of dominos, old coloring books and a cookie tin filled with broken crayons. I don’t ever recall a time where I was bored or complained about not having anything to do.
One of my favorite things to do with her was to color. She would pull out the coloring books and the cookie tin of crayons. We would color for hours. I can still picture the old scene on the lid of that metal cookie tin. When you opened it up, the tin was filled with a bunch of broken crayons that were short in size, worn down and did not have a label. We would scribble on an extra sheet of paper just to see what color the crayons were. I remember thinking how nice it would be to have a brand-new box of crayons that had paper labels with the color name and a sharpener too. I mean who doesn’t love to color with a sharp crayon.
To me and others, these crayons looked as if they should have been discarded and thrown away a long time ago. Yet, to my Mamaw Pauline these crayons still had purpose and value. I remember her saying these words to me “These crayons still color like the new ones do.” And she was so right.
As we would color with our broken crayons, I would become frustrated when I would color outside of the lines. My first instinct when I made a mistake was to rip out the page and throw it away. Mamaw would say in her sweet calm voice “Renee, don’t waste a page”.
Mamaw was always able to look past the broken and worn crayons to see that these crayons still fulfilled their purpose…they still colored. And as my Mamaw saw the purpose and value in this tin full broken crayons, God sees the purpose and value in us...despite our brokenness. Although we may make mistakes and feel discarded, nothing is ever wasted with God. He is holding onto us through HIS grace and mercy while He is continuously creating a masterpiece within us.
I am not sure what happened to that cookie tin full of broken crayons. However, I realize that there were some valuable lessons that my Mamaw Pauline taught me through them. I often wonder if she knew how much her smallest acts of love would have such a valuable impact on my life. Although she is no longer with us, how she lived her life, her lessons, her love for her family and most importantly her love for the Lord will forever be with us. I look forward to the day when I can see her again.
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