Devotion

Big Mama Dem
(1 Peter 5:5) In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”

While growing up, the kids in my neighborhood used to heckle and laugh at me because I did what my elders told me to do. Every year, as soon as the calendar page was flipped to March, the kids would dress like it was the middle of summer. We’d meet up to play on the weekends, and they’d have on flip flops, t-shirts, and shorts. I’d come out of the house wearing a t-shirt and a long sleeve thermal shirt under my top shirt, a jacket, a hat, two pairs of socks, corduroy pants, and my sneakers. (Yes, I was a mobile sweatbox!) They nicknamed me ‘Bouncer’. I was so padded down until the kids bounced back whenever they ran into me. My response to their teasing was always, “Big Mama dem say it’s too early to dress so thin.”
They laughed at me then, but I laughed later on when I was able to go on school field trips while most of them were home with the flu. To this day, I still follow what I learned from Big Mama and dem aunties and uncles of mine. They had the wisdom to know what was best for me. They taught it, I caught it, and  I am humbly glad I did.