Mariah’s husband was notably and continuously drunk on hard apple cider.
He urinated on the stovepipe when Mariah had all the church ladies over for quilting!
Mariah’s husband set fire to the Native American hunting camp along the river!
You can see why Mariah and her mother-in-law prayed that the apple harvest wouldn’t be very good the next year. This would mean no hard apple cider around for her husband.
Mariah was my dad’s mom’s grandfather’s grandmother, and her husband was my grandma’s grandfather’s grandfather (if that makes any sense). We’re related!
I was thinking about Mariah during worship songs the other night. This time must have been really hard for her, but we can see from the apple harvest prayer that she knew to rely on God.
We don’t know the direct “fruit” of Mariah’s prayers for the apple harvest that year, but we do see the fruit of a praying wife and mother to today. We know that Mariah and her husband had two children and their descendants following the Christian faith were among the founders of early churches in the area. And who knows? Maybe Mariah’s husband had a change of heart – the stories just don’t show that part.
It’s kind of like when God said to Abraham, “I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you” (Genesis 17). How cool is that!?
Special thanks to my Grandma Toady for her research into our ancestry!
Featured image from https://pixabay.com/en/apple-harvest-box-fruit-autumn-1431268/
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