She bit her tongue - a tribute!

Today is Peggy’s birthday, my older sister; she had probably had more human influence on my life than any other person.  She came to know Christ the same year I did, she through roommates at nursing school, me through a Child Evangelism Fellowship vacation Bible school.  The first weekend my sister could get away from school, she started it all, caring enough for my salvation that she took her earliest opportunity to tell me about Christ.  It happened that we said the “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer at bedtime, and Peggy asked my mom if she could hear our prayers that night…and more than just hear our prayers is what she did.  She shared the gospel with my little sister and I, and I think was almost disappointed when I told her I had already done that – pray to receive Jesus as my Savior.

But she didn’t leave it at that.  When she graduated and returned home, she asked my parents if she could take is to the local Baptist Church in Towanda instead of the liberal church we had been attending.  They agreed.  What I came to see as “my church” had a program that if you memorized and recited 100 verses, you could go to camp free.  She challenged me to do it, and each Sunday we got there early to recite our verses.  I was ten years old, and we went to camp together that year.  It was that same year, in fifth grade, that I met my Sunday School teacher, Fred Gardner.  He asked us, for homework for Sunday School, to look up all the miracles in the book of John, and for the first time, I understood the Bible was fascinating and I could understand, at least some of, it.

It was because of her influence that I went to Baptist Bible College and God used her in many ways to encourage us (Jim and I), to support us, and even to direct us as we sought God’s will.  She provided a second home for our children when we went to candidate school as novice missionaries, and during those months of deputation, missionary service, furlough, etc., her home was a stabilizing influence and safe place for all of us.

She modeled loving God and living completely for Him. She lived out trusting God when circumstances disappointed or grieved. Funny the things you remember, I remember a conversation at her house, when someone – not me – brought up a certain person, not a godly person, and I watched her bit her tongue rather than enter into what was not a god-pleasing conversation – even though what she would have said was the truth.  The point is, it would not have been edifying.

As I think of her on this her 77^th birthday, I am filled with gratitude for her life and the role she has played in mine, and I am challenged as I think about how I have lived out the legacy she gave me.