catapult magazine

The Inheritance

by MJ Gallagher

Presented on the occasion of Oma and Opa’s 60^th wedding anniversary on February 5, 2011.  Scripture excerpts are from Isaiah 43 and 44.

As dark haired and dark eyed
As Rotterdam streets
The sun’s golden beams
Under her feet
Little Adriana walks to town.

Mother is at home
And Father is at the shop
Telling someone the gospel
And taking a little off the top
Of a most willing hearer.

Now there is Eliza,
Best friend to her brother,
He doesn’t know but
She won’t be little forever,
Oh, how things will change.

There will be
A sick soldier sleeping
And his girl not leaving;
A ship crossing
To a wedding in Canada;
Babies and gardens,
Friends and farming,
Pancakes and picnics
At Sibbald’s Point
On Wednesday afternoons.
And then
There will be
New children
Grandchildren and
Great-grandchildren
Orphans loved
And widows cared for.
True religion.

Come now, let us talk
All about what God has done —
I could never relate it all at once —
It was here that I first heard
Of the Holy One, who’s Word is this:

“Fear not,
For I have redeemed
You;
I have summoned you
By name, you are mine.
I will
Bring your children
From the east
And gather you
From the west.
One will say,
‘I belong to the Lord’;
Another will call himself
By the name of Jacob;
Still another
Will write on his hand,
‘The Lord’s’
And will take the name
Israel.
Remember these things,
O Jacob,
For I have made you.
O Israel,
I will not forget you.
I have swept away your sins like the morning mist
Return to me,
For I
Have redeemed you. "

Adriana and Eliza,
I call you Oma and Opa
For I am your granddaughter
And I sing for joy with earth and heaven, saying,
“Surely, I have a blessed inheritance.”