Vada's Prayers

Proverbs 31:28
Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.

My great grandmother’s name was Vada Hill Trent. She was my dad’s paternal grandmother. He spent summers with her as a boy in West Virginia. Later in life she retired to Florida. I really know her only through his stories and occasional childhood visits. She passed on to heaven a few years ago. And yet, I’m her legacy.
Vada was an uncomplicated woman of the West Virginia mountains. The wife of a coal miner, mother of four children. Loved by everyone. A Sunday School teacher for most of her life. Treasured by her church family. Lived most of her adulthood on the side of a mountain. I remember her as a soft round small woman with sparkly eyes. She wore the traditional long gray hair of her generation wrapped around her head in a bun. Sensible shoes. Quiet and slow hands rolling out biscuits at breakfast time. Rolling gentle speech often punctuated with praise and honor to her Jesus. There are shades of her face in my dad and myself. My cousins in Ohio reportedly look just like me. My sister is sometimes called “all Trent”, sometimes I am; we look very little a like in reality. But there must be glimpses of our bloodline in us all.
I’ve inherited more from Vada than eyes or cheekbones or stories of the coal mine days on the mountainside. I inherited Vada’s prayers.
Quiet gentle Vada was a mighty prayer warrior She took great umbrage at the enemy’s attempts at her family and launched serious attacks on hell’s borders every day of her life. My dad remembers as a child awaking in the mountains to Grandma calling down heaven from an outbuilding. I awoke in Florida as a teenager in her retirement home to the same sound. Every morning, she rolled biscuits and slapped the devil in the side of the head.
I can’t make biscuits to save my life but I have inherited the benefit of Vada’s prayers. She prayed down the generations. I believe she prayed for generations she never expected to see. And I’m living in the jetstream of grace as a result.
She prayed for our salvation. I inherited the legacy of a family that serves Christ. She prayed for our protection. I inherited health and strength and safe passage through adolescence and beyond. I’ll never know what exactly she called down from heaven into my life, but I know I’m living her legacy. Living on Vada’s prayers.
I never turned away from Jesus as a teenager. Perfect? Yes, well, no. But covered in the blood of Christ and Vada’s prayers, absolutely.
My husband lived in the same jetstream even though Vada didn’t know his name. But I bet she prayed for the spouses of her babies, generations to come.
My boys today serve the Christ of their great great grandmother. So will their wives and children. How do I know?
Two reasons.
Vada’s prayers. A bloodline flowing from the cross, through West Virginia and into my veins. A legacy, a birthright and inheritance. Not that she was saved for us; but she fought hell for us, and won. So we would come of our own free will to the Jesus she prayed to on our behalf.
But I said my boys, and the generations to come would know God for two reasons. The second one is Sara’s prayers.
Vada prayed until she went home to Jesus but the work isn’t done. She covered me in her lifetime, and now it’s my turn to take up the work. I learned from Vada to cover those generations I’ll never see. I took the torch, am honored to do so. I’ll get up every morning, make a cup of coffee and slap the devil in the side of the head.
I take great umbrage at his attempts on my family. He can’t have them. Vada and Jesus said so.
So hell, in case you thought the fight ended when Vada passed, think again. There’s a new generation coming. Covered in the Blood of Jesus and the prayers of a humble mountain woman.
And a great grand daughter who knows where her legacy comes from.
Vada’s prayers.

Psalm 119:90 (New International Version)
90 Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures.