Grace Keep:  

My story covers 8 states and many changes in my life with a wonderful husband of 42years with whom I share 3 fine children and 16 beautiful grandchildren who are all gifts from God. God has guided me through over 8 years of college life, 4 of which were in Bible colleges, 1 in L.P.N. school and 4 in school for B.S.N., graduating from there at the age of 46. I have been blessed to be able to travel to 3 countries on Mission trips and did my best nursing with the care of my very precious parents, Lanham and Charlotte Hickman, who have been in Heaven now for over 4 years. My dear Papa was nearly 98 when he left us. Life has had many difficulties and challenges but God has never failed me and I am a very contented and blessed woman. I love serving Jesus Christ who is still the answer to the world's needs. I believe my best years are yet ahead with my husband and best friend, Bob. I will never forget the day that Tina Bowman sang for all of us on Goff Avenue when her Mother set up sound outside so we could hear her beautiful voice and we were awestruck. I don't need to blow off steam. I just take everything to God in prayer. My children taught me much about loyalty and love for each other when our grandson at age four lost his second eye to eye cancer. They trusted God as we did and only blessings have come out of the sorrow for all of us. In the last twelve years in Florida I have learned much about the seasons of our life and understand much more about the adaptations of the elderly to those changes. My godly parents and my grandmother Laura who died at the age of 92 showed me how to face those changes as God designed us to as we mature. They had to give up homes, comfortable surroundings, friends who died or moved away, jobs that gave them as sense of worth and face failing health and limitations that were often hard to bear. My parents felt they were a burden because they could no longer do for themselves in their last few years but I reminded them again and again, as all the children did, that we felt privileged to care for them as they always had for us when life was often hard. At one point my dear mother had to care for six children in a quarantined house for three weeks while we were all sick with scarlet fever and one was extremely ill. I remember my mother carrying a can of Lysol spray around the house and praying that she would not become ill nor my father who needed to go to work. God answered her prayers because she never got the disease. What a mother and father we had who proved their love in their constant care and protection and we owe so much to t...Expand for more