Chosen to Be a Vessel: A Memoir

By Grace Knesek

A story that celebrates family and friends, Chosen to Be a Vessel, by author Grace Knesek, offers a series of reflections and stories culled from throughout her lifetime.

Written at different time periods, Knesek shows how Gods grace showered her amid valleys and joyous mountaintops. It tells how she acquired her faith and trust in Jesus Christ when faced with troubling circumstances by communicating the feeling of her heart filled with joy. Ranging from memories of her youth on the farm to spending time with her grandchildren, this memoir presents insight into a Christian womans world.

Wise, gentle, and positive, Chosen to Be a Vessel, includes a compilation of books, scrapbooks, family, pictures, special quotes, and recipes gathered from one womans sometimes-challenging life. In this recollection, Knesek has created a lasting gift for the present and future generations of her friends and family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532049477

Grace Knesek

Grace Knesek worked as a hair dresser. She is a wife, mother, and grandmother. She currently lives in College Station, Texas.

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Copyright © 2018 Grace Knesek.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4946-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4948-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4947-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018905630

iUniverse rev. date: 05/24/2018

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Scripture quotations from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Easy to Read Version Copyright © 2006 by Bible League international. The ERV uses the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1984) as its Old Testament text with some readings from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Also, it follows the Septuagint when its readings are considered more accurate. For the New Testament, the ERV uses the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (4th revised edition, 1993) and Nestle-Aland Novum Testament Graece (27th edition, 1993).

Contents

Gracefully Done

Chapter 1   Reminiscing

Chapter 2   New Beginnings

Chapter 3   The Family Circle

Chapter 4   A Window of Hope

Chapter 5   All My Children

Chapter 6   And Then There Was Bobby

Chapter 7   Sisterly Love

Chapter 8   The Tea Party Darlings

Chapter 9   Family Festivities

Chapter 10   In to Worship, Out to Serve

Chapter 11   Just As I Am

Epilogue

Appendix

Gracefully Done

Since I was named Grace, I’ll say this book is gracefully done. But more importantly than my name, I challenge my readers to look closely at how God’s wonderful grace showered my life amid valleys and joyous mountaintops, bringing me to this point.

In my hairdressing career, I considered my name as part of my ministry. When one of my clients looked into the mirror admiring her hair and said, Grace, I love it, I quickly said, Then I hope you’ve been saved by grace twice.

I dedicate this book to my children, Kenneth Ernest Knesek, Timothy Alan Knesek, and Lisa Michele Knesek Brister and in memory of Tami Lyn Knesek. Also, to my grandchildren known as the Tea Party Darlings, Tami Lyn, Jordan Paige, Tirah Jill, Madison Chaise and Tannah Elisabeth.

A peculiar thing about being a parent and/or grandparent is that you have children a limited number of years. After a while, you may seldom see them, but the love of a child lasts a lifetime.

My love and devotion go to my husband by encouraging me in my writing and allowing the quiet times that I needed in the preparation.

God Bless You All,

Grace

CHAPTER I

Reminiscing

I am swaying ever so gently, back and forth on our back porch swing of the home in which I was born. At the age of 67, I continue on my life’s journey, returning to this building that sheltered and was to protect me as a child, yet didn’t always make me feel this way.

In the distance, a pair of beautiful cardinals chirp nervously as one of their babies flutter through the grass and venture farther from their nest. Tubby, our son’s dog, is lazily walking around the yard unbeknownst of how nervous his presence is to these protective parents. Little do these birds know of my love that I have for them.

In my home in College Station, I keep my feeders and bird baths filled and my ears tuned for their sweet melody. What a beautiful display of nature, just for me!

The first flowering day of spring on March 20, 1940, my mother gave birth to me in the north corner of this small country home. Assisting my mother was a midwife. I assume my birth went well because I never heard my mom say otherwise. Understandably so, for I was always one who would rather not cause a ruckus. However, at some point in my life, voicing my opinion became the norm.

For economic reasons and health, mothers nursed their babies and so it was with mom and me. When she decided to wean me, I cried a lot. My sister, Lucille, who was seven years older than me, had a stubborn pet billy goat. When I cried, he ran up and down the side of the house butting the window screen, trying to get inside. Windows were usually open for fresh air because of no air conditioning. My dad said, Sorry, Sis, the goat has got to go. Could this be where the saying came from, He got your goat?

This house was my sheltering place for eighteen years, along with my parents, my sister, my brother (10 years younger than me), my grandmother, and my mentally challenged uncle. Privacy was minimal. There were four large rooms with two porches. I spent much of my free time dreaming on the back porch. I have always been a dreamer. Since no one encouraged me to succeed educationally, I once again caused no ruckus, and so, my dream at this point to attend college did not become a reality.

I feel my level of wisdom has come from my life’s school of hard knocks and joyful episodes of real life. Throughout these years, it is my hope that much can be learned with a quote I have loved and adopted, Be careful of how you live. You may be the only bible some people read, which may cast a light on someone else’s life, therefore, I feel that I have been chosen to be a vessel.

Reflections

The birds have flown away, but I continue to swing gently as I look across the fields at cows grazing the land, and I envision what once was a corn field in which we broke the corn from the stalks and threw them upon a horse drawn wagon. Prince and Sam were the names of our horses. Dad would holler gee for them to go right and haw for them to go left. It was fascinating to me. Sam was the horse with which I plowed the fields. I loved using the words, haw and gee just to think my horse was smart. I repeatedly tried talking to Sam, but his vocabulary was never increased.

While in the corn patch pulling corn, occasionally a scorpion would sting my finger. Dad would yell whoa! and the horses came to an abrupt stop. They also knew that word. I painfully watched as my dad rolled his tobacco from side to side in his mouth, creating a very liquid, brown, smelly spit. He would take my hand and rub the generic tobacco juice on my scorpion sting. I’m not sure which was worse, the spit or the sting.

Cotton Pickin’

My dear friend, Doris Ann Heine Kovar’s daddy, had a cotton gin in Birch. When our wagon filled up, it was considered a bale to be ginned. Dada would hook the horses to the wagon and he and I rode on the soft, white, fluffy cotton to the Birch gin. While the cotton was ginning, Doris Ann and I would sit at her little girls table and eat her mother’s delicious cookies, drink Pepsi-Cola and play dolls. Oh, what fun! It was a full-fledged tea party! We remained friends for life and I look forward to seeing her in our eternal home. Doris Ann made those same cookies in her home and now her daughter, Marsha, does the same. When Doris Ann’s granddaughter, Macey Ann, begins baking them, I will have eaten four generations of those cookies. They are still delish.

We planted acres of cotton. Sometimes, we hired help to pull the cotton. Oh, how I remember picking cotton off the bolls for the first time! As I became a teenager, we pulled the bolls and all. When I would help finish gathering our crop, Dada, which is what I called my dad, said, "If you want to pull for someone else, you can keep the money to buy your school clothes. Mostly, I pulled cotton for our neighbors, Eugene and Gertrude Chmelar. I pulled 600 pounds of cotton a day causing back problems today. But, I had cute clothes to show for it.

Other times, Sam and I plowed up one row and down another with what Dad called a One Row Sweep Stalk plow. This was a time to dream of a better world ahead. On weekdays, recreation time included putting my horse in the stall, eating lunch, grabbing a book to read and sleeping for an hour. Then back to the old plow and dreamland, voicing a prayer, Lord, please send a shower of rain. I need an afternoon of quiet.

Boredom was never expressed for fear we would be given more work to do on the farm. There was corn to pull, cotton to pick, corn to shuck for chickens and chicken snakes to dodge while gathering eggs. Winter brought a new set of jobs such as fences to mend and wood to cut for warmth in our wood burning stove and heater. The aroma of fresh baked bread, butter cakes (butta kuken in German) and sweet rice made the house smell like home.

Hog Butchering Day

The most fun of all days came on hog butchering day. Neighbors would gather at the household that was butchering on that day. I