Remembering Mrs. Jenny....on Multitude Monday...

From Left...Susan Q., Donna G., Jenny O., Jonnie B. 

If I were asked to make a list of the most creative people in my life, the top three on the list would be my friend Tauna, my cousin Anna Beth, and my friend Susan's mom, Mrs. Jenny.  (It would be a long list, and my Granny Marks and my children would probably be next on it...I've been blessed with LOTS of creative people in my life!)  

Susan was my very first real friend.  We moved to Conway when I was three, and her dad was our real estate agent.  "I have a little girl your age..."  Little did he know!  We ended up at their church...for 14 years...and Susan was one of my very best friends throughout our childhood and teen years.  Mrs. Jenny put up with a LOT from us.  The fact that she didn't kill both of us...especially over the guinea pig incident (probably the worst thing this usually-goody-two-shoes EVER did)...was testimony to her graciousness.  I can still hear her saying, "YOU GIRLS..." with that stern look on her face but the tiniest merry twinkle in her eyes...

If we'd had today's technology, and Jenny had had a blog, she would have been famous the world over.  Not only was she unbelievably creative, she was also one of the most frugal people I've ever known...not because she had to be, but because that was just who she was.  She re-used everything, and found the most creative uses for the most mundane things.  I think I still have somewhere the bird-feeder Christmas ornament that we made with her...out of leftover Lord's Supper cups that were headed to the trash can.  Some of the most special items in my box of childhood treasures are the birthday party invitations she made through the years.  (Tauna, cover your ears....uhh, eyes...now, please...)  Now that I'm a mom (and planning two birthday parties this month!) I wish I had 1/10 of the creativity (and frugality!) that Jenny O. had in her little finger! 

And then there was Bible School. Mrs. Jenny (along with various other parents, including mine, Pam M., etc...) came up with the most amazing studies, for which we waited every year with great anticipation.  The most memorable was the year we studied the tabernacle.  They turned one of the large hallways at church into a to-scale, walk-through tabernacle, made of corrugated cardboard procured from the box company where my dad was an industrial engineer.  I remember walking through it, and learning about the instructions God had given for it, and the care that was put into crafting everything just according to those specifications, and experiencing total awe at God's greatness in a way that I never had before as an elementary-aged child. 

Each one of us also made our own individual scale model...also out of specially created corrugated bases/frames...of the tabernacle to take home.  I remember making various pieces out of clay, gold spray paint everywhere, and carefully crafting the veil between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies (while talking about the fact that it represented the barrier between man and God, and how it was ripped from top to bottom...impossible for man to do...at the time of Jesus's death).  Mrs. Jenny was not only amazingly creative...she was a gifted teacher who made the Bible come alive to us through her lessons.

There is no way that I could even begin to cram half a lifetime of memories of my friendship with Susan and of the impact that Mrs. Jenny had on my life into this blog post. My Facebook status yesterday said, "Thinking of Mrs. Jenny worshiping in Heaven this morning. Our SS lesson this morning is on service motivated by love & empowered by God's spirit...she was such an example of that! She was one of the very first people other than my parents to show Jesus to me...from the time I was 3! She had such a huge impact on my life in so many ways. Praying for Susan, Mr. Warren, Mrs. Helen, & the rest of the family today..." That is the most important memory I have of Mrs. Jenny...she showed Jesus to me...in a multitude of ways.  

Yesterday morning in church, Katie played a truly beautiful arrangement of "We Shall Behold Him" for the offertory.  As I walked down out of the choir loft, I was fighting tears, thinking of the fact that at that very moment, Mrs. Jenny was actually beholding Him...worshiping Him face to face!  What a truly awesome thought.  Then in Bro. Kent's sermon, he preached about the "vast riches of Heaven"...which are not, as people often think, streets of gold or gates of pearl, but the presence of God and Christ...seeing them in all their glory.  THAT is the "riches of Heaven"...not stuff!  I thought about Mrs. Jenny being one of the least "stuff" oriented people I knew on earth..and how great her rejoicing must be now experiencing those "vast riches of Heaven" in God and Christ.  

More of the Thousand Gifts...on Multitude Monday...

~ Mrs. Jenny and her impact not only on my life, but on the lives of so many, many others...  

~ The truly blessed assurance that she is worshiping Jesus face to face today...

~ The promise of God's comfort in our grief, which we've experienced firsthand, and for which we are continually praying for Susan, Mr. Warren, Mrs. Helen, and the rest of the family this week and in the days to come...

~ Susan's friendship and all it has meant to me through the years!  The blessing of so many treasured friendships that have been such precious gifts from God from those little girl playdays many years ago until now...

~ Those who have shown Christ to me through the years...starting with my parents, and continuing through so many, many others...

~ The blessing of creative people in my life who continue to inspire me every day, even those who are far away or gone to Heaven now...

~ My Sunday School girls.  They just bless me to pieces every week!

~ Our youth leaders at church...So thankful for Andy and Hannah, Amanda, and all the others...and especially for those who worked so hard on this weekend's fellowship...

~ The promise of fall...it seems so far away in the midst of this record-breaking heatwave, but  we know it will come eventually...:)

~ The assurance of God's sovereignty and justice...which we cling to today in the face of news from a friend across the world whose family received word of a devastating "not guilty" verdict today in the case of a crime against one of her children.  He is here, He is in control, and He is good, all the time...

~ His amazing grace, always...