By Pegi Bricker
Does it really take a village to raise a child like Hillary Clinton claims?
I am very uncertain if this is true, but when it comes to me and my life as a Christian, it truly has taken a village of spiritual mothers to get me through my being born again years, through toddling to preschool to now. I can’t really use the term village, but I will use the term church, not a church, but the church.
Way and away and long, very long ago in a place far from Seymour but oh so very similar, the Lord God loved on me so much I could not have run from him if I had been a sprinter. It isn’t that I loved him but that he first loved me just like my big brother, John, has written in the New Testament. The Lord Jesus drew me out of a well of miry clay so sticky, stinky and dark even the bats dared to soar.
My first official encounter with a real sold-out Jesus Freak was almost 40 years ago, long before the term Jesus Freak was used by TobyMac. Not only did she tell me about Jesus, she showed me Jesus in her love for everyone, especially me.
She also did something that is sorely lacking in today’s Jesus Freakiness: She discipled me. She and I went on some crazy adventures all over central Indiana on my Kawasaki 400 meeting by chance the saved, the lost, the smelly and those who smelled but thought they didn’t, if you get my drift.
She loved everyone no matter how big or hidden the warts, and she taught me to love everyone just like Jesus. The Lord turned my life upside down and sideways, creating in me a sweet fragrance of repentance and obedience. I have been friends with Tina for around 38ish years.
I have forgiven her for spilling coffee and orange juice in my sunroom during our very first conversation, and she has forgiven me for turning my hair purple the days before I was her maid of honor, oh and giggling audibly through her vows to Michael.
My first spirit-filled momma also explained that while Jesus loves every one of us exactly the same, every one of us breaks his heart by not loving unconditionally the ones we see as conditionally unlovable. I was and still am to this day one of those societies may deem as unlovable.
I’m elderly, ill, slow, sometimes fat, sometimes wheelchair bound, sometimes unkind, sometimes uncaring and sometimes compromising, but through my dearest friend, Tina Parks, I have from day one experienced God’s agape love by seeing Jesus in her.
I honestly can say because of her tender discipleship, my vision of God is not a big lightning bolt-throwing meanie, and his throne is easily seen as a huge, glistening, overstuffed rocker when I so desperately need my Abba Father to hold me in his arms of mercy, of grace and of forgiving love.
About 20 years ago, I once again found myself in a pickle of the truest sense of sour dill. Suddenly, a lady at Cornerstone came up to me in our ladies Victory Group and flat out said, “I am supposed to teach you how to study your Bible.” Well, I thought I was already pretty much doing that. Think again, dear daughter of mine. I could almost hear the holy spirit informing big old fat baby Pegi.
Yes, I was fat on the milk of the Word, but I had no idea at that time how to mine for gold in the pages of my sword, how to use that sword in battle and how to dig in deep and stand firmly in those “Be still and know that I am God” type of situations, which for me is the very most difficult of all biblical principles in application, heavy sigh.
Nancy England explained to me how the Bible beginning to end is about one single, simple and slightly unbelievable theme.
1. God loves me.
2. God wants to be with me.
3. God is just, so because his just and unwavering in his hatred of sin, he requires blood atonement for my mess past and present. (Sometime other than now, I’ll touch on those new-every-morning-mercies I require.)
4. God sent his son, Jesus Christ, for my redemption so that I can be with him forever because he knew I could never be with him in my own strength, power or futility in sacrifice.
Put that in your chain reference Bible and follow all the notes, I dare you. Did I say simple and simply mind-blowing? With Nancy, I studied the Hebrew and Greek meanings for terms in the Old and New Testaments by doing old-fashioned research long before I ever owned a computer and prior to my friend Google’s birth.
I was finding I loved the meat of God’s Word even if it did take me weeks sometimes to unlock a single passage by meditating on it, attempting memorization and the hardest of all applications to my life.
Marge Miller and my sweet momma and Floridian barista Anita, you each experienced the meaning of prodigal firsthand because of this, you brought me great comfort fulfilling 2 Corinthians 1.
One thing I was not expecting, though, was to learn the real prodigal was me. I honestly never would have cherished the voice of my dear daughter, Karen, and the sweet savor of her hug without your prayers and blessed assurance modeled through you both over the past two years.
If meekness and kindness had a name, it surely would be Ruby Niccum. Thank you for crawling into bed with Karen after mom died suddenly. Our family was so lost during that most horrible of situations. When I saw you that afternoon cradling her quietly while her 10-year-old mind tried to find out why, I realized I was seeing Jesus.
There is no word I can write or even find in my limited vocabulary to express what I see in your eyes every time we are together. I want to be like you when I grow up because you are just like Jesus to me.
Rhonda Kidwell, you continuously model humility and submission in a godly marriage. Watching and listening to your wisdom has changed me, and I thank you for your gentle reminders that the Lord will turn the head of the king as he pleases and things really do go more joyfully when I just let the Lord be the Lord and hush-up in stillness.
Beautiful Karen Thomas, I realize now that shame was keeping me from my destiny. I tell that accuser, old serpent and father of all lies, “Hey, I am not going there, get behind me,” and I am victorious in forgiveness and identity as a daughter of the living God.
Through Donna Toborg, I have learned by watching how she lives, to stand up for my beliefs, to defend truth and seek justice all the while being a strong yet tender and loving woman of faith. I have not seen Memorial Day the same since you told me the story of Sgt. Smitty and how he promised to get Bob back home to you from Vietnam.
Dear readers of mine, in the end, hero Sgt. Smitty never returned home to his family paying the very ultimate price for our freedoms, but he did keep his promise. Our friend and patriarch of a family of service, Bob did indeed come home to his wife and his tiny son, Tim. I have typed this paragraph several times, beautiful momma Toborg, because tears of gratitude well up each time at the thoughts of sacrifices all veterans make, especially each military spouse.
Thank you, Bob Toborg, Gary Dyer, Sgt. Smitty, my cousins, Rob and Michelle Jarrell, and my beloved Clarence for ensuring our freedoms to worship Jesus, pursue happiness and to live in this great country where so many don’t realize how truly blessed we are to be able to choose to stand, kneel or even ignore our flag and the rights our Constitution give to us daily. God bless our veterans and those who are active duty. I appreciate your service, and that is no cliché.
Charlotte Lovegrove and Theresa Schwartz, you taught me to pray through crippling disease. I watched you both stay steadfast and confident in God’s faithfulness, enduring breast cancer, broken hips and collar bones and multiple and awfully painful surgeries.
Your example teaches me now that when my legs won’t walk, my finger can’t feel and my mind wrestles with the cruel dementia of MS and the medications I take to tolerate each day that I also can overcome by the blood of the lamb and word of my testimony not loving my life even until death.
If and when one part or more of my body finally says “Enough is enough,” I know I can rest in that very same confidence and that my overcoming will help others to stay the course, serve others when I am in pain and know that all is oh so very well with my soul.
Over the past dozen or so years, the Lord has sent many spiritual mother my way, some who now wait for me to join them in dance around God’s throne. I believe now I am a mother to some, while only still relearning many lessons taught to me over the years. One thing is clear: It not only takes a village, it takes a lifetime.
Pegi Bricker is a Seymour resident who has lived with multiple sclerosis for the past 18 years. Send comments to [email protected].