The spirit of Elijah

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to the fathers...

Malachi 4:5-6 

All my life I've heard of the spirit of Elijah.  Until I started doing family history, I didn't know how real it is.

It's so real that yesterday afternoon when I was sort of cranky, I decided to do family history because I knew it would make me feel better.  (I also took a nap.)

On Thursday and Friday nights, Jennifer and three of her kids stayed with us as well as Kanigh, who is Luke's friend and teammate as well as my second cousin's son.

I couldn't help it.  At one point, I said, "Luke and Kanigh, come here."  I showed them some pictures in my stairwell.

I pointed to the top picture.  "These are your great grandparents," I said.  "That's Jim and Iris and they're your great grandparents, Kanigh.  And that's Harvey and Margaret, your great grandparents, Luke.  Harvey and Jim are brothers."

They both looked kind of stunned.

"Under that picture is David Dahl.  He's Harvey and Jim's dad.  He's your great great grandfather."  Then I pointed to the bottom picture.  These are David's parents.  So these are your great great great grandparents."

"Where did you get these pictures?" Kanigh asked, awed.  I looked up into the faces of these two certifiably sweet tall boys in their shorts and Nike elite socks, tired from a day of basketball tournament play.  I could see it.  They were touched by the spirit of Elijah.  You feel something when you connect even a little bit with your past.

I hadn't met Kanigh before his visit and we are pretty distantly related (second cousins once removed), but the pictures in my stairwell showed all of us that we are family.