Ruth’s Story 6 (and last)

For the first five installments, see here, here, here, here, and here.

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A NEW HOME AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS

Our home on 1503 F Street had served our purposes very well. I enjoyed the large rooms, the large yard and the many, many storage closets. After the leukemia treatment, this wonderful home became more and more unmanageable. Soon, this home which had served so well for 25 years but needed so much up-keep became a great big chore. With our income cut when I quit working at Richland Sales, it was not feasible to think of getting someone to help me with the house and yard work.

We found a mobile home that we both really liked. It has large rooms, less of them and storage is adequate even if much more limited. It was time to go through those closets and to begin to share family treasures with our children and anyone else interested. The year of 1996 became a very intense year with the goal of becoming oriented to a smaller home. Again, we found ourselves indebted to friends and family. My sister Darlene helped to clean the large house to make it ready for resale—and it did sell as soon as it hit the market! Thank you, Lord. We shall remember close friends and family members who made themselves available for moving, preparing our new home for us, etc. Our friends Mike and Florence LaRue took on themselves so much of the painting and wallpapering and inspired us to continue with the redecorating when our resources had run out. Earl and Esther Enns gave us advice and encouragement on how to fix up our yard for a spectacular display. Tim and Cindy were there to help as they could, although it came just at a time when Cindy was discovering her latest pregnancy. Our Bible Study gang, Sam Bergens and Bill Martins, helped to move the many boxes, etc. Even Carolyn on one of her trips to visit us managed to help me to find just the right place to hang my wall decorations. How can we ever repay such acts of kindness?

I know that the Lord shows us the way. We are all so different and the Lord has taught me to become more comfortable first with myself and then with others. We have so many different ways of showing our kindness to one another. God has also taught me to appreciate Don’s gentle but resistant, quiet spirit which often conflicts with my more up-front, take-action personality. Don has learnt from Esther Enns who worked together with him at the Enns Pontiac office to become thoughtful and surprising!

My health and the difficulty Don and I had in communicating effectively over the years has affected me emotionally—perhaps the most devastating was the rejection I so keenly felt from family who did not like my temperament. It caused me to search more deeply in God’s Word and to find the disciplines necessary to change what was not pleasing to God, but also to be relaxed with that which God wanted to use in the ministry He wanted to accomplish in my life! I also discovered that depression can be physically caused and needs to be addressed as such—but that which is caused by circumstances or by personality needs to be put under the scrutiny of God’s Word, and “the peace that passes all understanding” will then become a reality despite the surroundings. Thank you, God, for a rich, full life, and I praise You that You use even the most disconcerting affairs to bring about Your purposes, according to Romans 8:28.

I am so grateful that I have learnt how to personally look to the Lord to guide my life and teach me. I operated many years thinking it was up to me to make happen whatever changes needed to happen—perhaps because my childhood did not have the gentle teaching to learn to trust in Jesus in everyday situations. I found myself longing for an older woman to disciple and teach me how to make decisions that would help me to feel good about myself—but even though I sought for someone, I could not find one. Hannah Regier was perhaps my closest mentor in my children’s younger years, and I profited so much from her example, but we never lived close enough for me to benefit from her teaching day by day. Her example in some ways made me determine to do it on my own because I could see what a wonderful Christian she was—but I did not see how she was allowing Christ to do it in her.

Because I met up with mostly criticism on how I did things and because I was a first-class people pleaser, I attempted to change myself but not ever quite sure how to do it. I went to God’s Word and read how I must put my old self to death and so I attempted to do just that, managing to squelch my feelings thinking that, if my feelings were kept in line, I would be pleasing to God. It was in a Bible Study with Jean Hammer that I really caught that my life in Christ is an ongoing relationship. I can and will fail all the time, but God always has His arms wide open to forgive me as soon as I come to Him to allow Him to teach me. It is never dependent upon pleasing others, but He does use others to affirm and refine me. The more I come to sit at His feet for Him to teach me, the more I will feel His pleasure upon my life.

I also have learnt that, although I should spend much of my time building up those around me, it isn’t based on people pleasing but rather based on helping those people to become more aware of God’s love and the relationship He desires to build with them also.