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When someone has the appearance of being unflappable in terms of your spiritual life, your spiritual walk, that isn't something that you can just muster up the day before you need it. It is something that you need to nurture and encourage from the very beginning of your Christian walk.
And how do I do that? You do it for a study of the Word and not just a superficial study. A serious, systematic, exegetical study of the Word. And you ladies are in exactly the right place to do that.
For those of you who grew up in this church or maybe have not known any other kind of church except BBC, you are an exception to the rule. And my husband and I have traveled to enough different places both in the United States and in Europe to appreciate that.
The desire on the part of men who have been called to preach, it seems to have been more that they want to tickle the ears or they want to create a happy environment or a circus-like environment. And so those men who are serious about teaching the Word of God, instilling the Word of God in their congregants, those men and those churches are very rare.
So that is one thing. Another thing would be to make it your habit to read books about strong believers. And I am sure that your library and your bookstore probably have quite a few. I actually brought a book with me and then it got lost in the jumble of my guest room, so I wasn't able to bring it with me right now.
But my friend Deb Jeffries, who some of you will know, when my husband passed away, she sent me a book partially by and partially about Susanna Spurgeon. And that has been an amazing comfort to me. I'm actually going to read a few of the comments that Susanna Spurgeon made when she and I were in the same season of life, having just lost their husband.
Now, that may not be your season of life right now. It may not be a husband. You may not have been called to be married. But there will come a time in your life when you will mourn the loss of someone who meant very, very much to you.
And so this book about Susanna Spurgeon and some of her meditations have been very meaningful. Reading Pink's book, reading any book about the attributes of God has been wonderful. So I would encourage you to read, but also read the biographies as well.
The biographies of David Brainerd, Jonathan Edwards, and some of the women, Susanna, Wesley. There's an enormous amount of material available. I would encourage you, even you young children, young girls, young ladies, to begin reading now and cultivating the stories of those whose faith has been tested and proven to be good to the very end.
So that's another one. Fellowshipping is extremely important. And obviously with all of you ladies here today, Christian fellowship, and particularly in a season of life, fellowship with other women, that is important.
I had to fight in the very few days after my husband's death. I just wanted to go into my bedroom and close the door and just shut the world out. And again, any of you may not have come across that particular kind of event in your life, but there's been something I'm sure that each one of you can relate to.
That is not the time to isolate yourself. If a friend pesters you, as I had a friend, and won't let you rest, even abonishes you, listen to them, ladies. And so don't isolate yourself. And this would be good even if you were just going through a rough patch in your life.
There's often a tendency to want to just isolate yourself and just go into a dark corner and just hover. And God intended us to be in fellowship. And so that is another aspect of it. So, yeah, being in a good church, reading the word of God every day, reading about other Christians and their lives and how they handle things, fellowshiping with like-minded sisters in Christ, those are all ways in which I've been able to.
Well, and I am thankful for those of you ladies who did grow up in a Christian home, because, again, you are the rare exception in this day and age. My mom and dad were good people. They loved us. They cared about us.
They kept us fed and clothed. They were always there for all of our school meetings. If my brother and I and then later when my sister came along, we all were in choir. They'd come to all of our concerts.
So they did good things as parents, but they were not believers. So I can relate to those of you who did not grow up with mentors, with models, who could show you how it is done. So I had to learn that as a young wife.
And I am thankful that my husband's mother, Joy Brown, who was a contemporary and friend of Kim's Grandma Evie, she was a godly woman, and she, whenever possible, we never lived in the same town together, but she wrote me long, beautiful letters that I still have today.
They are just precious to me. And in it, she, in a loving, gentle way, kind of pointed me in the direction. And it was very important that I establish a regular time every day. She said, I don't care what time it is.
For her, she was always an early riser, and so her time on a consistent basis where she could read her Bible, meditate, pray, was early morning. And there were times during our married life where that was a good thing for me.
Our children, our surviving children, did not come until we had been married ten years. But I was also a career woman, too, so there was not a lot of time in the mornings. And so I just made a time, and it turned usually about when I would get home from work, when I was working, before the children came along.
And Louis was not yet home from work. That would be the time that I would set aside. And so, again, the time, it's to your schedule and what works best for you in whatever season of life that you're in.
Now it is morning because I have all the time in the world. What I do is that our church has what we call the daily Bible reading. And five days a week, the entire church reads a passage, a chapter from the Bible.
And we go through for a whole year together, and then we start over again. Last year it was the Old Testament. This year it's the New Testament. Next year it will be the Old. And so it's just every other year we're going through a book of the Bible.
And it's five days a week, and on Friday it was Hebrews 3. And so even though I'm not there, I'm not with my sisters in Christ at our church in San Antonio, I've been able to keep up with what they are reading and learning and meditating on from the words.
So read your Bible every day. And there are numerous plans. We just came back, several of us, from a women's conference. And our speaker said she's on her fourth reading this year. And not just of the Old Testament or just the New Testament.
It was through the Bible. And she has the same number of hours in a day that I do, and she is a whole lot busier than I am. So you find a way. You ask God to reveal that to you and to hold you accountable.
And it can be done. I honestly, I can't say I've never read the whole Bible even once in a year. So she was an amazing encouragement to me. But read your Bible consistently. Another pattern that I do is that I know that in normal times that you will be going through a particular book of the Bible.
And so you know exactly where Pastor left off last Sunday. I always like to include what he is going to be doing this Sunday. And we have been, in our church in San Antonio, for the last more than a year, Ephesians.
I mean, it's not one of, you know, it doesn't have 100 chapters in it. But he is just taking verse by verse. And we have been camping in Chapter 4 of Ephesians since long before Lewis died. And he's been gone four months now.
So just in Chapter 4. So find a way to be consistent. And it's always helpful to be prepared ahead of time for what your pastor is going to bring to you when he is doing his normal preaching routine. And if I know Pastor Mike, it will be verse by verse in a particular chapter or book of the Bible.
Now, there's always occasions where you'll do a one-off. And that's certainly understandable. But it gives you a starting point. So reading the Bible. I also have on my desk in my kitchen about three or four books that I use for meditation.
Not all of them are daily Bible readings, but most of them are. And I kind of pick and choose which ones that I use. One of my favorites that a friend gave me just right after Lewis passed away was Richard Sibbes, the wonderful Puritan Divine.
Have you ever read any of Richard Sibbes? I would encourage you to do that. He does have a daily devotional. And so I just follow along with that daily devotional. Another one that I use is Voices from the Past.
That may be more familiar to some of you. There are actually two volumes. And it is a daily guided reading. So I will do that. It's not taking the place of reading the Bible itself. I'm sure you ladies understand that.
But it just enriches. And I don't know. How many of you follow some sort of a daily Bible reading plan? Has it ever happened to you that whatever that day is that it just seems... This is what I'm going through right now.
This is what I've been praying about for the last week. It's amazing how practical and how personal these daily Bible readings are. To use an old 60s expression, it will knock your socks off. And so I have those.
Another one is the Valley of Vision. I got hooked onto the Valley of Vision here. So it's been a long time. And it is not a daily Bible reading. But there are just wonderful gems. If you're hearing a theme, yes, I love the Puritans.
But that is not to say that some of the current devotionals and daily readings are not good because they are. That's just me. I'm probably closer in age to the Puritans. But I do love them. And then not to neglect prayer.
And so I'm sure that many of you are involved in a Bible study of some sort, a ladies' Bible study or maybe a couples' Bible study. And each one of those, there will be a prayer list. And so I have that list right there by my desk in my kitchen.
And so I will pray for those specific things that have come to mind in the past week through all of my various... I have two Bible studies that I go to. So, prayer. Can I stop you there? Yeah, that's about it.
I'm sure there's more, but about prayer. Have you ever gotten any no answers in prayer in the last how many years you've prayed? Well, if there were, they're not prominent on my mind, actually. They really aren't.
I just feel like that whatever comes, the Lord allows to come through my mind, if I've been praying for it, I just say, praise you, Lord. If it hasn't come yet, Lord, I'm going to be patiently waiting.
But no, I have never really been aware of any time the Lord has said no. Well, I don't want to get maudlin on here. I'll try to skip over it really quickly. But in the hospital the day that Louis, he was out riding his bike and had a heart attack.
And they didn't tell me. I am fair to well convinced that he was dead before he fell off his bike and was on the street. But they took him to the hospital and they did just heroic types of effort to try to start his heart up again.
And I was at the hospital while they were still attempting to do that. The machines were still going. And of course, of course, I prayed, Lord, spare my husband. And it was not within his will. And that was okay.
But that's really, the other times I have just not been aware. Whatever happens, I know is within the Lord's will. And I don't think of it as no. That was a no answer. Or if it is a no, the Lord's will is better than our will.
Exactly. She says it better. So the attributes of God that are dear to you in those circumstances would be? The sovereignty of God. I know I wasn't just a lone ranger out there having to deal with life.
And I am not talking just about Louis's death. I am talking about my entire Christian life. It is so important to understand that God was there. He is the I am. He is the creator and owner of the universe.
And because I have believed in him and I am his child, the comfort that I get from the sovereignty of God has always been of great value to me. His consistency. He never changes. I change not. His immutability.
The fact that we have lived in Germany. We have traveled in far off places. And so we know that he is omnipresent. I used to think when we helped start a church in Munich, Germany, many, many years ago, that is still going strong.
And I used to get so excited. It was an English-speaking church intended for English speakers. But there were Germans who somehow heard that these people here at this building are reading from something that they, most Germans have never had any acquaintance with.
And I think it's something that I need. And so they would start coming. And most of them were English speakers. But when they prayed, and we did have a time of corporate prayer, they would pray in German.
And that was the first time, I was a grown adult, but it was the first time that the reality of the omnipotence and omnipresence of God, he was understanding that German's prayer as if I were speaking it with my Texas accent.
And so, yes, so he is omnipresent. He is immutable. He cannot change. Those are great attributes. The fact that he deals with me in justice, but countered with mercy as well, those are great attributes that I have relied upon and had great comfort from over the years.
Awesome. Yep. I'm sure there are others. What about, what do you wish you had known as a young mother? We'll start with that, a young mother that you know now, you realize now. Okay. And this is a question that actually Louis and I kind of talked about not long before he died.
And that is that if we had to do it over again, we would not stop evangelizing our sons. Both of them came and acknowledged saving faith. They were both baptized. My younger son is a graduate of master's, now university.
It was college at the time. The other son was happy to be in church and involved in church. And we just kind of, okay, they're in. Our job is done kind of thing. And we were really not careful to make sure that their faith was not just ours, but it was a faith of their own.
And so the only way that I can describe it, and this is what Louis and I came up with, is we stopped evangelizing. So even if your children have professed faith, believing faith, still push them and encourage them in the direction of evangelism first before discipleship.
Make sure that their faith is genuine. And sometimes that's really hard. We had wonderful, pliant, obedient boys, and it was not in their nature to say, oh, you're wrong or you're full of it. All we ever heard was, yes, mom, yes, dad, oh, I believe this, mom, I believe this, dad.
And yet the crunch time comes when inevitably this precious little baby that you've nurtured and loved and fed and clothed for 20 years or so now goes off on their own. And they have to face a hard world on their own.
And so just really work on making sure that your children's faith is their own and that it is real. It is not a fake and not an imitation kind of faith. That and also I think that when I was a young mother and our two boys were 17 months apart, and I know that there are ladies in here who have raised four, five, six, seven children, put me to shame.
My two just about did me in. But I was so focused on them and their needs and making sure that their lives were happy that there was a period when my sweet, precious husband kind of had to fend for himself.
I was exhausted by the time he would come home from work. And I was not as loving and as attentive to him and to his needs. To his credit, he didn't count that against me. And praise God for that. Beyond that, what do you wish to know?
Well, that, you know, that a marriage is made up of two individuals. I know I'm speaking to the choir here, a man and a woman. Thank you. And it is important to know that the man's purpose, God-given purpose, and all that makes him a man is unique and special.
It's not the same as Eve. Adam in every way was different from Eve. And there were times as a young wife, too, that I was thinking from a female point of view, well, why can't Lewis do? Why isn't Lewis doing?
And it's always had to do something with meeting a need that I was needing. And so it took me a long time to realize that we are not the same and that God's purpose for the wife was to encourage her husband, to come alongside her husband.
Yes, to be obedient to her husband. But knowing, as my husband was, and I would pray and hope for you here, too, if your husband is operating correctly from the biblical principle, it won't be a burden for you to follow him and to be obedient to him.
But even if he isn't, that is what we are called to do. And I can't ever, I don't want to even hint that Lewis ever abused the relationship and the role in any way. It's just I was the problem. And so I had to learn as a young wife that there are God-given roles that are different for the men and for the women.
Also, it is so easy, I'm sure this never has happened to anyone else in here, but it's so easy to compare my husband on his worst day with somebody else's husband on his best day. Because that's often what we see of anybody else's husband is they're in public and they're on their best behavior.
That is wrong thinking. And as soon as I understood that, that was a big help in getting me on the right track to having the right attitude as a wife. And also just reminding that he was the man that God gave me.
Sovereignty. Yes. There, go back to the sovereignty of God. Actually, he understood the male role in a Christian home as being the leader. And it always ultimately he knew that whatever his decision was that I would go along with it.
But he gave me a lot of freedom. And sometimes, you know, I would try to approach it like this. All right, this is the decision you've made on this. Can I make an appeal? Can we talk about that? Can I present a point of view that maybe you hadn't thought about with this?
But your attitude, your facial expressions, everything is so critically important at this point. You are still, you're not robbing him of his God-given authority in the marriage. But you are also appealing to him as a believing man whose love of God is very real that would you be open to hearing another point of view?
So that does not come easy. And I can't say. No, any tricks. Just having a few more birthdays, frankly. Just experience and age. It seemed to come easier. But this is also where it is really helpful, starting out at an early age, of reading accounts of how other women handled being married and being in a subservient position to her husband, how they did it.
Sometimes I have a dear friend in San Antonio, and she says, you know, what I am good for is that I'm good for the bad example. And so sometimes we will even hear or read accounts of a bad example, but that will be just as important to us.
Okay, I don't want to do that. Look what happened there. What was the natural consequence of that? So even if it's a bad example, you can still learn from it. It's better to do it from a good example.
And there's plenty of books. If you want to find out, ask Kim, ask Janet, ask Sunita, ask any of the older women in leadership, and they'll direct you to the right books. I'll try to keep that brief. How much more time do we have?
The time goes by so quickly. Believe it or not, I started out as a young, you know, I was young. There was a time when I was young. And interestingly, we were married in 1967. As I mentioned, we just celebrated our 56th wedding anniversary when he passed away.
But there were early, early years. And in the Lord's providence, when I was a young wife and young mother, we moved to Southern California and started attending Grace Community Church. And so I was able to watch older women at a church where, again, there had been a long tradition and history of Bible, biblically-based living.
And so there was a woman there at that church, and she kind of took me under her wing. And I would encourage you, if you're a younger woman, to seek out someone who can just pour her life into you. Ask, again, ask one of the, Janet or Kim or Sunita or any of the other, Karen, any of the other ladies, and they will be able to direct you.
We just heard this weekend that our speaker, Susan Heck, had and still has two mentors that she has been with for 40, 30 years, a long time. They're in their 90s now. That is so important. And sometimes it takes a little bit of courage to go up.
You have to admit, I don't know everything. And sometimes for a young, particularly if you've just graduated from college and you've been told that, hey, I've got it made. The world is at my feet. I don't need anybody.
That is the hardest nut to crack, let me tell you. And in a way, that's the way I was. I had just come out to have a master's degree in a very secular field, and that would have been my natural inclination.
But the Lord and his providence brought us to this church in California, and I began to look and watch. And so, ladies, you older ladies here, just remember that, that younger ladies are watching you.
And so, I don't want to put scares into you or not, but always be aware that you are a testimony, even just by the way you smile, the way your countenance, your face, the way you hold your body up, the way you dress, but certainly the way that you express yourself as a believing woman.
People are, younger people are watching that. So, I would just encourage you. Fat? Yes. Yes. Find a fat friend. A fat woman. A fat woman is faithful, available, and teachable. And so, if you can find someone like that, you've got to be the teachable.
Yeah, right. But every church has plenty of ladies who are just, no, I'm not going to say that. But they have plenty of ladies who are eager to want to just be approached, and sometimes it does take that.
Our speaker said, well, what is better? Do you go and say, hey, I'd like to mentor you, or I'd like to disciple you, or do you wait to have someone come to you? Whatever works. The Lord will impress upon your mind if there are certain ladies that you know that he wants you to approach.
It's interesting, the very first time I ever discipled a lady was here at this church, and Pastor Mike called me up and he said, hey, I'm not going to say names in there, would you mind reaching out to her and maybe getting a discipleship or a mentoring program?
I said, sure. And I got off the phone and I thought, what is discipleship? What does it mean to mentor someone? And so, I was clueless. And maybe some of you are in exactly that situation now, but there's a quick learning curve.
And again, God, this is one of my watch words that I say, God does not call us to do anything unless he has equipped us to do it. Or the other way around, he will equip you for what he has called you to do.
So, the fact, if you're like me and you have no clue what discipleship means or what mentoring means, don't let that be a no answer for you. Step out in faith and you'll get with the program real quickly.
And there will be ladies who have done it in the church who will be able to help you. Thank you so much. Thank you. For just a few minutes. So, we're going to have to bring her back every year to do like ten more of these.
What were you when you started out in your career? Weren't you an anchorwoman? Yes, I worked for a local CBS affiliate in El Paso, Texas. I did their television news. Can you say this all? Do you remember?
I can remember. Okay. This is Dallas Ann Brown, Big Four News. Thank you, Dallas. Thank you.