AUNT LIZZIE

She wasn't my aunt. 

I was a newly married, first-year student at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky.  I was 21. 

Debbie and I attended the Free Methodist Church in Wilmore where Clyde VanValin (later a bishop) was our pastor.

Pastor Clyde asked us - early on - if we'd provide transportation to and from church for Aunt Lizzie.  She was an invalid, elderly, native woman who had been hit by a car as a young girl - but received no medical care.  She lived in a small wheelchair the rest of her life with twisted and gnarled legs.

Aunt Lizzie loved the Lord, but was dependent on others to get to and from church.  The congregation loved her and cared for her graciously.

She lived at the end of a road that went from macadam to gravel to grass with two tire ruts.  Her house was more like a shanty - very small and very run down.

Because of the rough terrain in her front yard, I would literally pick her up and carry her to the car - then go back to get her wheelchair.  When I did so, she would wrap her arms around my neck and whisper thanks.  She couldn't have weighed a hundred pounds.  She was the lightest burden I ever carried.

Her gratitude was as large as the sky.  Her love for God inspired a whole congregation of highly educated college and seminary professors, future bishops, and know-it-all seminary students. 

She taught a newly married, first-year seminary student some much-needed lessons in humility!

Thanks Aunt Lizzie.  I know you're walking with Jesus today!  Remember me?  I'm one of your students.  Thanks for the lessons!