...Like our mothers

In this ministry business, one meets the most interesting persons; in fact, one gets to really know the most interesting persons.

One of those is Miss Anita Leatherbury. We celebrated her 95th birthday recently. She has been a steady church-goer since, well, since anyone can remember. Certainly she has very rarely missed a Sunday since I've been at her church, er, the church. She sleeps through most of my sermons, frankly, but heck, so do I so it's a match made near heaven.

She's not up to date with most of the stuff I talk about or the way I talk about it. She knows nothing of social media or the like, but think about what she's seen in her lifetime. She was born the year of the Titanic's sinking if math does me justice. She has lived through the dot.com industry. She was nearly a teenager when the 1927 Yankees did their thing. She lived through the Great Depression and several of the recessions, Great and otherwise.

Her back has given her a big, big bit of trouble recently and despite living alone not far from the bayou they call Lacombe, she takes that stuff called Oxy by dealers all around.

I say all that to tell us all that she fell Sunday night. And one of those old hips couldn't take it. It shattered in three places. Today they will do surgery to try to fix the damaged thing. I'm sure they'll do their best. I'm also sure that life pretty much changed for her Sunday night. I'm also sure that if she is able to come back to the church her husband literally built, well, it will be in God's time and not hers.

In Paul's writings to his student Timothy this morning. Paul said, "Don't correct an older man, but encourage him like he's your father; treat younger men like your brothers, treat older women like your mother, and treat younger women like your sisters with appropriate respect. Take care of widows who are truly needy. But if a particular widow has children or grandchildren, they should first learn to respect their own family and repay their parents, because this pleases God."

Miss Anita isn't perfect. She comes from a time when stuff wasn't as clear as it is today about certain issues. She is a product of her time. It's just that her time is a long, long essay on how people are to be treated. That's both good and bad.

But her heart is a good one. She means well. And she loves the house she owned for so very long with her husband. I fear she won't see it again in the way she once did. I go now to pray for her before her surgery, and I would ask that any reader do the same.

Paul tells us to treat older women like our mothers. I'm trying.