A Saltwater Girl

A Saltwater Girl

Her name was Jane. I had the good fortune to work with her on a church staff for seven sweet years. When I began the job, I was thirty-six and she was eighty-four. She used to joke that she was so mean it took being baptized in salt water to clean her up. But she wasn’t mean. She was spunky and opinionated and full of life. And she loved Jesus long and well.

“Getting old is not for sissies,” she used to tell me. “You’ve got to be tough to keep on living!” She also confessed that heaven grew sweeter as it became populated with people she’d known and loved. I can attest to the truth of that now; then I wasn’t so sure.

Once we were roommates for three days on a staff retreat. She made me laugh so hard my sides hurt every night. And whether or not my light was out, each night she got in bed, turned over on her side, and was asleep in a matter of seconds. She was the living embodiment of decades of our church’s history. She once tapped a photograph of a former pastor and said, “He was smart, but he stayed two years too long.” I blinked at her frankness, but Jane called it as she saw it.

She was the most alive, vibrant, winsome woman—yet she never married and had no children. I used to look at her and secretly think, Oh God—don’t let me become like her! Now I remember her and implore him to do just that: to make me a beautiful, loving woman who’s stretched out in pursuit of the life God has planned for me.

Today is her birthday. A few days before she died at ninety-one, I asked a pastor who’d been to see her how she looked. “Like a girl getting ready for her first date,” he said. “She looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Don’t you dare pray me back. I’m ready to go.’” He didn’t disobey. Happy birthday, dear Jane. I’m so glad you’re home.

The spacious, free life is from GOD, it’s also protected and safe. GOD-strengthened, we’re delivered from evil—when we run to him, he saves us.

Psalm 37:39-40, MSG