{"id":3295,"date":"2026-01-17T17:31:54","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T17:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=3295"},"modified":"2026-01-18T06:27:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T06:27:53","slug":"sunday-verses-piney-grove-1-18-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=3295","title":{"rendered":"SUNDAY VERSES: ‘Piney Grove’ (1\/18\/2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"

in memory of Kenneth Eric Adams<\/em><\/p>\n

By RAHN ADAMS<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
MY LITTLE BROTHER, Ken Adams, on his 9th and next-to-last birthday (Photo by Rahn Adams)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every fall and winter I go back \/ to 1976 and 1977 when I was 17, \/ a senior in high school, \/ big brother to a little boy \/ who suffered more than he deserved.<\/p>\n

It had been the Bicentennial, \/ a year of celebrating our freedom; \/ but summer was over, \/ and on the 1st of October \/ the march toward January 17 began.<\/p>\n

After I hung up the telephone, \/ all I could think to do \/ was run over to our little white church, \/ fall down at the altar \/ and pray for his cancer to be cured.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
‘PINEY GROVE,’ one in a series of pastel church drawings by Timberley Adams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I wanted some sign from God \/ that he had heard my plea \/ for my brother to be healed, \/ and that he might survive the knives \/ and the fire and all that poison.<\/p>\n

I flipped open my Bible \/ to the longest of the Psalms; \/ and my unaimed finger fell on the 17th verse: \/ \u201cI shall not die, but live, \/ and declare the works of the Lord.\u201d Yes!<\/p>\n

But on the 17th of January \/ I learned that the promise I had read \/ referred not to my little brother \/ but to me, as it traded my heaven \/ for the hell of wait and see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

in memory of Kenneth Eric Adams By RAHN ADAMS Every fall and winter I go back \/ to 1976 and 1977 when I was 17, \/ a senior in high school, \/ big brother to a little boy \/ who suffered more than he deserved. It had been the Bicentennial, \/ a year of celebrating … Continue reading SUNDAY VERSES: ‘Piney Grove’ (1\/18\/2026)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3295"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3301,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3295\/revisions\/3301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}