The hills above Belfast were green with the emerald color of spring and fresh from the damp sea-blown breezes. It was 1996 and my first trip to Northern Ireland and I felt at home. I wondered if my grandmother — whom I had never met — walked these hills above the North Sea. Did she amble among the hillside flowers? Walk the winding paths above the cliffs? Did she face the wind and sea and, like me, sing the old Irish hymn:
Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Nought be all else to me, save that Thou art --
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
I wish I had known my grandmother, Anna Verona Cacey. They tell me she was a saint. She had immigrated to America in the late 1800s, met and married my grandfather, Vincent Offrey Eareckson, and raised four rough-and-tumble boys, all of whom were athletic and fun-loving. Anna Verona’s prayers kept them in line, especially young Johnny, whose job it was to hitch the horses to the wagon and shovel coal into the neighborhood cellars each day before dawn. It wasn’t an easy job. It was even tougher to keep the boys’ focus on Christ and church activities as sounds of the Roaring 20s echoed through the west end of Baltimore.
Years later, a wistful smile would cross my father’s face and his eyes would dampen as he’d recall, “There were many a time my brothers and I would argue about whose turn it was to go down into the basement to bring up the coal. Before you knew it, we’d turn to see Mother coming up the steps in her long skirts hauling that heavy bucket. Then there were nights I’d come home late from the YMCA or from Boys’ Brigade at church and find my mother sitting by the coal stove, afghan over her knees, and her Bible on her lap. I knew she had been praying for me.”
And probably singing, too. As I understand it, my grandmother had the lilt of an Irish songbird and hymns from her homeland always filled the Eareckson household with praise to God.
Little wonder Anna Verona captured my thoughts as I sat on the hill above Belfast. She is a part of the beauty and history of that gloriously green emerald isle, just like “Be Thou My Vision.” I’m so grateful to God for my grandmother’s vision, her Spirit-inspired ability to see the world, her world, as God saw it. With a focus fastened on the Lord Jesus, she was able to see the invisible — a son named Johnny who would grow into a noble man of fine character and tender heart, passing on the love of Christ to his daughter, his namesake.
May God give me the grace to see the world as it should be. May we all keep the vision.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
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