A New Year's Surprise Gift

There is an eighty five year old man who attends church with us. When we first started going to church there, his wife was with him. She was a little woman and wore red lipstick, her cheeks were colored brightly, and her hair was always hidden beneath a turban-type cover; traits which gave her character without words. Mr. T always opened the truck door for her and people often saw them in Wendy's, where he would seat her and then go order their meal. They had no children.

The last time I saw her was in the hospital; I didn't know she was there until I heard him talking to her, so I peeked in to see if it was a good time to visit with her. He asked me to come in and told her I was there. She gave no response and had he not been in the room, I wouldn't have known her; the turban wasn't covering her thinning white hair and her face was pale. She passed away a few days later.

Time seems to have helped heal his loneliness; he still comes to church and every Sunday he says the prayer before the sermon, always, always, praying for our country, our leaders, our military men and women, and that we will all grow to be "more like the gentle Jesus."

There were times when I saw him give a piece of jewelry to some of the women, and a week ago he told me, "I don't mean to leave you out; I just didn't know if you wear rings." So I was totally honest and told him since arthritis has made my knuckles large I don't wear rings; even my wedding ring has been put away. Last Sunday, he was waiting for me at the door with this:

Now when you get as old as I am, any little gesture of kindness means so much. I told him, "This is one of the sweetest things anyone has ever done for me," to which he replied, "I bet your husband gets you things nicer than this." I laughed and said, "He buys me farm things, like tractors, not jewels."

Somehow, his kindness comes straight from the Bible: "Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Ephesians 4:32

A New Year's Surprise Visit

So, here we are, into the new year. I've been reading your blog posts and it seems everyone had a good Christmas. Ours was fairly quiet with all the family for the noon meal except two grandchildren and a daughter and son-in-law. One of the grandsons called from CO so we had a "visit" of sorts with him.

Popa gifted me with two new jigsaw puzzles and I waited until yesterday to work on one. Last night, after supper, I was working on it, and the phone rang. I heard Popa say, "Yes, we'll be here, come on over." And then he gave the person directions to our house. I asked who had called and he said, "The Mennonite group wants to come to our house and sing for us." I scurried around, making the room ready for visitors, but he said they'd probably stay outside; then, car after car came up to the house, and when we opened the door, a large group, mostly teenagers came inside out of the cold. There were two adult couples with them. And then they sang; oh my, what beautiful music! The voices of those girls were like voices of angels, and behind them the boys filled in with bass notes and one man sang tenor. They allowed me to sing with them and I was so happy to blend my voice with theirs.

After the young people left, the adults stayed and talked for a while. When the women found out that I have a quilt in the frames, one woman asked, "Can we see it?" And then, in spite of the fact that I was wearing jeans and they were wearing little bonnets, we just became three women, loving music and quilting.

This new year's visit was one of the most wonderful things anyone could have ever done for us and I'm thankful they came, bearing gifts of praise to God.

Charlotte