Learning to Pray by K. Denise Holmberg

My Dad was eight-months old, balanced on my Aunt Vinita’s hip, and playing with a pocket watch that belonged to his father who had passed away. 

Vinita had been crying. There had been only two eggs to eat that day and she had burned them. There were so many mouths to feed … three sisters and four brothers. Plus mom, who was looking so thin and tired, but still managed a smile and said, “I’m not hungry anyway, Nita. You kids share the potatoes, I’ll be alright.”

Mom had been walking around the mountains selling boxwood plants that she grew on their little farm in “the gulf”, the northern, lower edge of the Great Smoky Mountains. Usually trading one of her plants for an egg or two, a loaf of bread, maybe a few vegetables from someone’s garden. Life had always been a struggle, but now it was becoming desperate.

My Aunt Callie was the eldest. She was sixteen and determined to help her mother and siblings. So she set off, by herself, and walked out of the mountains all the way to Newport, Tennessee. She didn’t have a plan, but had faith that one would come to her. 

My Grandmother didn’t hear a word about her daughter for over six-months. Did she make it out of the mountains, a young girl, alone and on foot? Was she alive? Or dead? There was no way to know.

Grandmother prayed, often seen on her knees, praising God while her stomach ached from hunger. Trusting him with the life of her eldest daughter, and laying the lives of all of her children in his hands.

One day, they heard a horn honking and all the kids and mom scrambled from the small cabin they called home. It was Callie, driving a pick-up truck and looking larger than life. It was a precious moment for my grandmother. She silently offered up her thanks to the Lord who had kept her child safe.

They loaded everything they could in the back of that pickup, including all the kids. My Grandmother and Vinita sat up front, my Dad in Vinita’s lap. They left the mountains that day, forever.

I’ve often thought of this true story about my family and my Aunt Callie. I couldn’t imagine watching one of my children walk away from me, knowing they would be spending weeks alone in the

The Great Smoky Mountains

wilderness, where all sorts of harm could come their way.

I asked my Aunt about it once, what it felt like being by herself in those mountains all that time. 

“Weren’t you afraid? What happened? What did you do Callie?”

She looked at me, giggled and said, “I learned to pray.”

Would you have been able to do what Callie did?

Blessings!

KDH