Series: Renewal
Psalm 51:10 ESV
I Peter 4:8-10 ESV
Once in a blue moon we meet someone who we have an instant connection with and it’s so strong that it feels like you’ve known that person before. In reality you know you’ve never known them.
For me, Virginia was one of those people.
The connection was so strong that it seemed like we could be sisters, but there was a problem. She was more than forty years older than me.
In time we came to realize we had both worked for the railroad, we both voted the same way, we were both very passionate about the same causes, and we both thought certain strange things were extremely funny.
We were kindred spirits.
Virginia wasn’t the kind of person who bragged about how holy she was.
She was a woman of faith, but it was a quiet faith. She preferred to do quiet acts of service behind the scenes.
She was ever so loving and generous, and she had a wonderful sense of humor.
After I’d known her a while I realized she didn’t want anyone to be able to brag about her gift of service so she’d leave you laughing (I think that was her way of deflecting attention away from her gift of service).
I have to admit, while she was outgoing and terribly funny, I knew little about her early life.
I’m not sure how she came to know my youngest son, but some time after we moved to the city where she grew up she hired him to help with yard work.
When she hired him he was not old enough to get a job working for a business so she (along with her husband) gave him a way to earn his own money.
In time I came to realize she was much more than a customer for my son. She did not have children of her own, and so she did not have grandchildren or great-grandchildren. She became more like a grandmother to him than an employer.
She loved him, and she loved him well.
Looking back she became a driving force in his life. We lived in that town for several years and they were pivotal years for him. When we moved there he was still in grade school and by the time we moved away he was in high school.
In addition to being a woman of faith, she was also woman after God’s own heart.
She had the gift of serving others and she took it seriously.
She was the hands and feet of Jesus.
When I read Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” I thought of Virginia. That wasn’t because she was perfect, or thought she was perfect. It’s because she took her relationship with God seriously and she was a humble woman of faith.
She was the kind of woman who was secretly humble before God.
She did not ever brag about her faith.
She didn’t brag about her acts of service. She actually wanted her acts of service to be done in secret.
I strongly suspect there were things she did for my son that I never knew about, or maybe he never knew about.
I also suspected she sought out my son because she knew both sets of his grandparents lived five and six hours away from him.
She didn’t just hire him, she adopted him.
She stood in the gap for him at a time when he needed her. He didn’t know he needed her, but God knew and Virginia accepted God’s call.
In I Peter 4:8-11, the Apostle wrote, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
She loved.
She accepted a young boy into their lives.
She served Jesus well.
What I know is that if she could see him today, she would be ever so happy about the man the boy became. She would be especially proud of his service!
Spiritual Practice: Listen
Listen for what God is calling you to…
In God, Deborah
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