Passing the Baton, pt. 1

by Peggy Brown

I was born into a Christian home, had many generations of believers in my family and was raised in an evangelical church. I consider that I am greatly blessed to have such a heritage.

I have been thinking lately about the women in my life who have influenced, shaped and discipled me literally from before my birth. (Now, here’s the disclaimer: There were men in my spiritual life, too. My dad and grandads, etc. but for now I am writing only about the women!) This is the beginning of a trip down my memory lane of spiritual mentors. “Why would I be interested in reading that?” you may ask. My hope is that as you read through this list you will see yourself and your relationships and possibly will be spurred on to be a spiritual mentor in some way to other women in your life.

I guess I have to start with my fore-mothers who prayed for me, possibly even before my parents were married, but certainly from the time that my existance was announced! I am thankful that those Godly women practiced their faith diligently!

Next, of course, would be my mother. From the earliest moments of my life she prayed for me. She saw to it that my faith was cultivated from before I spoke my first word. She gave me music!!! We sang about Jesus a lot! I can not even remember a time when I didn’t sit on the organ bench next to her as we sang whatever songs I was learning in Sunday School, and I absorbed the words and melodies of the old hymns. (I think that they may NOT have been old then!) Quite naturally, she began to teach me to play them as well. As I got older, we’d sit and sing…my melody with her harmony blending in! I learned all of my Bible stories in her lap. There was never a time when she was unwilling to take time to talk to me about her faith (or anything else, for that matter!). She saw to it that I was in church and Sunday School regularly. When I reached that inevitible time in high school where “I don’t want to go to church, I don’t get anything out of it”, she dispensed the sage wisdom that if I was there, God’s truth was soaking in whether I knew (or liked) it or not. Side note: I have since dispensed the same wisdom to both of my own children. Her faith wasn’t educated or sophisticated, but it was REAL.

I have to add my sister to the list next. Since she was 7 years older than I was, she was like a second mother. In my early gradeschool memories, she is there encouraging me that Jesus was with me when I was too afraid to go to school. She was faithful to show me that Jesus could be trusted in real life. She walked the path ahead of me and let me watch her in the process.

I’ve mentioned my Aunt Alma before, and I have to add her here as well. She never married, so my sister and I received all of her “maternal” attentions. She reinforced the faith I was learning from my parents, and also built in her own lessons on obedience to my parents and respect for my elders. These all were grounded in the scripture. From her I learned faithfulness. She was faithful to her Lord and His Word! She trusted Him, literally, for every single need she had in her life. I also learned what it looked like to see people through God’s eyes. I never heard her speak ill of a single person in my whole life.

I was recalling the other day that there were a couple of Sunday School teachers that stand out in my memory. I am sorry that I don’t remember all of them! One was Maude Hutchins, my teacher around 3rd or 4th grade. She was as old as Methuselah, I was sure. What I remember about her, besides that I loved her, is the time in my girls’ class when she asked me to pray out loud. I replied something to the effect that I couldn’t or was embarrassed to. Her response to me was “Honey, when you pray out loud, you are just talking to God, not to these girls sitting around you!” I prayed out loud for the first time that day, and have never been afraid since.

Another Sunday School teacher was Mrs.Withrow. Her first name was Chris, and she was from Texas. I remember loving how she talked. She was around 5th grade. I will have more to say about her later, because she intersected my life again in High School. But what I remember most about her is how serious she was that we should learn to love God with “all of our hearts, souls, mind and strength.” I remember her prayers, in her southern drawl, intreating God for our hearts and minds. I remember that I wanted to be a Christian like her.

There were many others in my early years that were just there to make sure we had fun at church and learned about Jesus. Mostly, I think, they were just faithful to live their lives in plain view of our little, eager eyes. G’Ann, who was my Pioneeer Girl’s guide, was the coolest person ever. She was newly married and invited us all over to her house to bake cookies and paint our fingernails. She told us stories about how she met her husband Darryl, and, you guessed it…God was in the center of it all! Mrs. Akers…she had no eyebrows and I was fascinated by her red, penciled brows. She was so patient and gentle with the little girl that was such a handful. (I’m sure we’d call her ADHD now!) She was Jesus “with skin on”.

I am so very amazed as I sit here and write. I wish you could know how many I am thinking of and leaving out! God has blessed my life with a multitude of women. I am so thankful!

The scripture that I keep thinking about is Titus 2:3-5:
“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 on will malign the word of God.”

Lord I am amazed and humbled when I think of the heritage of faith that you have given me! My heart overflows with thankfulness. Please enlarge my heart to include other women in relationships so that I may pass along those things that you have entrusted me with. Amen

To be continued…