What a Woman Taught Me

The SBC brouhaha over Dr. Sheri Klouda reminded me of the following:


Verna Miller looks like a grandmother.

She has short grey hair, blue eyes and glasses with frames from the 1970’s. She was always one of the dependable folks at Lone Oak Baptist. Mrs. Verna’s home was a good 20 minutes from the church and we would often see her little blue Ford make its way through the Hill Country and out to the church. Her family came from the country and had moved “into town” some thirty years before. But she was loyal to that little church and drove the opposite way of most folks, heading from the town out to the country every Sunday morning and Sunday night.

We had been there a few weeks when I heard someone mention her husband. I was surprised and had assumed that she was a widow. Her husband suffered from back pain and he could never come with her to church. (Although tongues often wagged that he could go out and play a game of dominoes or talk to friends at the local feed store.) But Verna said only positive words about him. She did encourage me to visit them at home which I was honored to do on many occasions.

To be completely honest, the visits were more for her than for him. She asked me to come, but he really didn’t care if I did or not. He wasn’t the most pleasant person around. He was gruff and often told her to get him this or that rather than asked her to do so. But she never failed to show him anything but honor and respect. She simply adored him and I always left their house shaking my head. Frankly I, wondered how he was fortunate enough to marry her???? [Something I’m sure Kadie’s friends often wonder about me too, by the way!]

After we left the church in 2000, I heard that Verna’s husband, never in the best of health, took a turn for the worse. Alzheimer’s began its slow ravaging attack on his personality and his memory. Verna could no longer take care of him at home, but did see that he moved into a comfortable assisted living facility. Some of her fellow church members whispered to me that Verna would be better off after her husband moved out of the house.

But something amazing happened.

Despite the fact that the staff at the nursing home was well equipped to feed and care for her husband, Verna began to go to the home every morning, every afternoon, and every evening. At the cafeteria, she would patiently feed her husband each and every one of his meals. She did this as the Alzheimer’s worsened to the point where he did not even realize who she was anymore. Although she had been a fixture in Lone Oak worship services for decades, she stopped coming to church on Sunday evenings because she was spending the dinner hour with her husband.

She went to the nursing home every day for the next five years of his life.

I have shared Verna’s story on two occasions prior to this post. First, I shared it in a church service at my home church while going through the book of 1 Timothy. When we got to the passage of 1 Timothy 2:11-12 I told Verna’s story. I shared that I was certain, even though we were a state away, that at that same instant on Sunday evening, I knew that Verna was at her husband’s side, feeding him and honoring her vow to him and to God. Verna taught us all something that day.

The second time I shared her story was this last summer when I was asked to return to Lone Oak and conduct her husband’s funeral. I shared her story with her church family and as we lamented her husband’s passing, we celebrated her faithfulness to him. And we also celebrated her faithfulness to Him. Because her husband’s illness lingered, we saw Christ through her life of grace.

I know more of Christ and of His love for us through her sacrificial actions. I know more about what it means to be with someone through sickness and through health because of her actions.

This old woman taught this man a lot.