“Mary: A Life Celebrated”

(This devotional was published on our site the week of August 23, 2005.  This week we received an e-mail from Paula Harrington who shared the story of Mary with us.  We have added that e-mail to this devotional, for in it is the true celebration of a Christian woman who had a profound impact on many lives.  Thank you, Paula, for sharing with us the story of Miss Mary)

      Did you ever receive one of those ‘life lessons’ that came to you out of nowhere?  By ‘life lesson’, I mean something that someone else, through their life, teaches you that leaves a lasting impression on your heart and mind.  During the past half hour, while going through the website e-mail, I was blessed with one of those lessons.

     The lesson came in the form of a prayer request from a sister in Christ regarding an older sister in the Lord.  She asked that we remember Mary in our prayers.  She writes the following:

Would you please remember a good friend of mine in your prayers and on your prayer lists?  Mary is a dear friend of mine. She is a faithful member of the church... Her husband was a Gospel preacher for many years…  Mary has recently decided to quit her dialysis.  She is in her mid 70s and has thought long and hard about this decision.  She said that she is ready to see God.  When I lost my grandmother last year, I adopted Ms. Mary. She is one of the sweetest Christian ladies I have ever known and I am thankful that God has allowed me the opportunity to get to know her and love her the way I do. She always has a smile on her face and a funny story to tell.  She is a good, Christian woman and I can't stress how important that is to me.  She is looking at the big picture and she knows she will be better off with God.  I hope we all can have her attitude when faced with our own life and death.

 Please pray for her as she enters this part of her life.

     So many lessons in a short paragraph.  Let’s look at a few of them.  Paul gives the following instruction through his letter to Titus:

Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.   TITUS 2:3-5 (NIV)

Now read the words written about Mary.  Good friend, dear friend, faithful, preacher’ wife, thoughtful, sweet Christian lady, joyful, good Christian woman, lives in the light of eternity with her eye on the prize;  I have never met Mary, but through the loving words written by a younger woman, I would dare to say that Mary has been faithful in carrying out the charge given in Titus.  She may or may not have ever taught a ladies’ bible class, but it is evident that her life is speaking volumes of what a Christian woman should be. 

     Mary, thank you for the life you are living…for the lives you are influencing.  In a time when so many are intent on making the preservation of this earthly life their focus, to the point of ignoring the life to come… in such a time, thank you for helping us see that the life to come after these short years is to be our true focus…and that the proper focus makes this earthly existence truly a joy.  Thank you for teaching us what it means to take to heart the words of Paul to Timothy:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—… 2 TIMOTHY 4:7-8A (NIV)

 -Jennifer Watson

October 1, 2005

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