This morning at around 8:30 AM Ruth Anne Lindsey became absent from this world and present with the Lord. It was the result of a sudden onset of some sort of extreme pneumonia, which began in the morning yesterday. I have known her and husband, Jerry, for the 16 years I have been serving as pastor as New Hope Church. They are elders in our church – and two of the most wonderful people you could ever hope to meet or know.Ruth Anne, who was beautiful and the epitome of strength, vibrancy, and “life,” was suddenly stricken with some rare combination of bacterial meningitis and encephalitis. It happened about 9 years ago. This resulted in her being rendered to the mentally and socially existent state of perhaps a 3 year-old child. This person who was once an effervescing conversationalist, with a wonderfully strong will, who cared for and worried about, “everyone” – was now one who would communicate with great limitation and restriction…and required constant care and oversight herself.For 9 years Jerry has been by her side every day - literally. For 9 years he shut down every thing else in life to care for her – literally. That is “all” he does – or rather, all he “did.” Until today.Ruth Anne used to come to our house and visit with my mother…they would sit on the front porch of our house on Doyle Court and talk and share with each other. And then they would always close their time together by inviting God into their conversation – in prayer. I have a sense God was particularly interested in being invited to join in those “front porch conferences!”One of the precious reflections of Jerry and Ruth Anne’s life can be encapsulated in a couple things Ruth Anne would often say. I heard these things from nearly the first day I met them. She used to say all the time, “Jerry Lindsey is the best man I’ve ever known!” Her children (and friends) would also regularly hear her say to their dad, “I love you Jerry Lindsey!” (First and last name - always...)Too precious…Last night, after doing everything that could be done, the attending physician announced the inevitable reality: she had perhaps only hours to live. Jerry, of course, was predictably by Ruth Anne’s side – holding her hand and comforting her continuously...bending down and putting his arm around her head...putting his head next to hers. At one point during those moments I happened to be in the room with Jerry’s granddaughter, Ashlyn. She turned to me and said, “Do you have your phone? I need this picture…” I said, “Of course,” and handed her my phone. What the picture won’t tell is what was happening in the very moments the image was captured. And clearly, what a granddaughter wanted to capture photographically had already captured her heart.At that particular instant, Ruthanne was in a semi-conscious state and speaking in very child-like slurred speech, yet you could understand her clearly. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was labored…but she kept saying one thing over and over again…“I love you Jerry Lindsey…”“I love you Jerry Lindsey…”“I love you Jerry Lindsey…”He would just hold her head and respond through tears, each and every time, “I love you too, baby…I’m right here.”I wrote this because it stopped me in my tracks...I don't know, maybe it will you too. Perhaps your eyes will fill with tears, like mine are now.But even more importantly…The gospel of John says that “grace and truth” travel together…On those occasions we have the rare honor of witnessing great grace in the lives of others it will always translate into truth to us - if we will listen…Truth - that “un-hides” the things that matter most in life. Truth - results in fresh depth perception of everything we think we hold dear.For me, one more time, in the middle of perhaps one of the most time-consuming, and mentally-demanding seasons I can recall …God has adjusted my depth perception on life. He has done it through the “circumstances” of the pain and anguish of another as I watched grace poured out “into” a crisis, and poured out “through” a person in a real-time crucible of extreme life. This particular grace was the fruit of decades of covenant love between a husband and a wife…that grace in them and through them became truth to me of what matters most at the end of it all.So…my next act was to walk across the room…and say to a particular person, “I love you Brenda Sterbens.” And then we prayed together for the “circumstances” of Jerry’s life and for his family…and then......We were just thankful for the grace poured through them and into our lives!That grace……and truth…
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