My great-Aunt Ruth died Thursday night. She had a heart attack and passed into paradise at the ripe old age of 95. They buried her today in Johnson City, Tennessee.
Aunt Ruth was something else. To quote my mom….”She was Grandpa Hannum’s little red-headed sister. She looked and sounded just like him. At one time she did a lot of speaking to ladies groups. She taught her ladies class at church until just a few years ago, as well as Junior Church. J She drove like a maniac and had the greatest sense of humor. She was a great Christian lady with a great way with words.”
What else is a blog for, if not to be transparent? Thus, it’s “transparency time.” I remember a few years ago (when she was only 90), thinking to myself, “Aunt Ruth’s too old to be teaching junior church. The kids have to be running circles around her. She’s got to be out of touch.” And I remember feeling ashamed afterward for even thinking that thought.
Shame on me for seeing a number, like a person’s age, and equating that with irrelevance. Shame on me for looking at white hair and seeing only the past. Shame on me for looking at wrinkles and dentures and seeing only skin and bones.
Shame on me for being more out of touch with God and with my fellow man than my 95-year old great Aunt Ruth. She was, in every sense of the word, a great lady.
Addendum…
I heard from someone via email re: Aunt Ruth this week, and wanted to share their memories of her also………………….
“It’s interesting that you thought Aunt Ruth would be out of touch. I can totally see why you’d think that. But I wish you could have known her. She was amazingly “in touch”. I remember her just a few years ago telling us about her Junior Church lessons. ( It is a tiny country church and she only had 5 or 6 kids, so they weren’t running wild around her.) She was currently doing a unit about SEX! She said these kids are getting bombarded with the wrong messages at younger and younger ages, and they needed the truth now. How’s that for “in touch”? 
I think I knew this, but I was reminded that she started teaching at age 18 and a couple of years ago received a plaque and reception and newspaper coverage for teaching Sunday School for 75 years! Do the math! That is amazing! She also was a/the pioneer of “Junior Church”. She helped start it nationwide. She also led the Children’s Convention at the North American for several years. And she did the kids lessons at the Kiamichi Mission family camp……this used to be a BIG gathering. She was in great demand as a ladies speaker. She did teacher training things, traveling all over.
Bob Shannon, who preached her funeral, talked about her teaching the Adult Class at Oak Grove for years. She would study all week for it and then do the whole lesson from memory on Sunday morning. One Sunday she recited all the kings of Israel and Judah, and the # of years they reigned, totally from memory! He was in awe! Her grandson said that when they cleaned out her house, they found dozens of worn out Bibles—she just went through them because she used them so much.”
I wish I could have known her better. I’ll say it again – she was a GREAT Christian lady.
