| Good morning everyone, Our theme for this month: “The influence of a mentor” Our Bible verse for today: “Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn; Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth.” Isaiah 51:1-2 (NIV) Our thought for today: “We are influenced by our heritage” I remember when I was a teenager, quite a stir was created in our extended family (grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, and out-laws), when we were all contacted by a man named George Whitney Mercereau, from California. He explained that he was part of the vast clan of Mercereau / Mersereau family, spread across America and Canada, and he was something of an amateur genealogist. In his retirement years he researched the Mercereau / Mersereau family tree as far back as he could, and through as many branches down through the generations as he could. He traced our family all the way back to La Rochelle, France in the early 1600s, to a sea captain named John Mercereau. Captain John was a Huguenot and he and his family fled France because of religious persecution. They came to the New World (America), settled in what would become New York, and proceeded to populate a large portion of the New York Metropolitan area. Our family ended up with business owners, judges, professors, five brothers who were spies for George Washington, and many other colorful characters. As a result of his work, I can trace my direct line of descent back ten generations to Captain John Mercereau, born in 1627 in France. I’m not a Buddhist, but I did come across a compelling image created in a word picture by Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh about ancestors. He wrote, “If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.” Family plays a big role in who we are as a person. That’s especially true early in life through the influence of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. All of them can be and are mentors and examples, to varying degrees. That being the case, we will now turn our attention to the important mentoring / influencing role parents and grandparents play in the lives of children. For this morning though, I encourage you to give some prayerful thought to your family heritage and to how it may be influencing you, for good or for bad, right up to this very day. God bless, Pastor Jim |
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