The Meaning Behind Our Blessing Boxes

Fay West was the grandmother of Tuckered Out Ministry's Founder, Carla Goodman.  If you are from the Concord, NC area, you may know Fay as the Grandma from Grandma's Quilt Shop. Back in the day, it stood in the sharp curve near the corner of Pitts School Road and Poplar Tent Road.  She was known in the community for her beautiful quilts that were always adorned with a ladybug and her initials. Depending on your age, you may recall seeing her and all her quilts set up in the middle of Carolina Mall for the annual Quilt Show sponsored by the Happy Quilters Club that she founded. Or, you possibly took one of her quilting classes at the Kannapolis Senior Citizen Center.  As you left her shop or one of her classes, she almost certainly would tell you, "Happy Quilting!". 

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More importantly though, Granny Fay was also known for her love of Jesus and wanted everyone she met to know Him. She used a tiny tin can to do just that. Wherever she went, she carried her tin can that she proudly called her "Blessing Box". To doctor appointments, the grocery store, restaurants, church, birthday parties, literally everywhere. It was nothing special, just a repurposed tin can that had previously contained chocolates or flavored coffee, or something of that nature. However, when she met you, whether for the first time or the fiftieth, she would hold out her Blessing Box, remove the lid and say one of two things. "Would you like a blessing? or "Take a blessing!"

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You see, she believed God's word to be the blessing we all need, all the time, every day. She studied God's word feverishly. Inside that tin can were small strips of index cards that contained Bible verses she copied down, cut up, and stored to give away as blessings to others. She trusted God to provide the right scripture to the right person at the right time.

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Our Blessing Boxes contain items to encourage pastors and their families, but they also contain a hand-written Bible verse from Granny Fay's Blessing Box. Before she passed, we copied several of the scriptures from her Blessing Box so we would have her hand-written copies forever. The verses we place in our Blessing Boxes is our way of continuing her ministry and to remind us all that God's word never fails and to use it as our belt of truth.