Farewell, Lorena

We got a phone call Saturday morning, one that we'd been expecting and dreading for about a year now - it was our pastor telling us that our church's oldest member, Lorena, had just died.  She was 102 years old.  As you'd expect with someone over a hundred years old, her health had declined over the past few years.  But she never lost her spunk. 

At her funeral service today, I was sitting there in church reminiscing about Lorena, and my fondest memory of her was on the the Sunday that we joined Fourth Avenue Baptist. She was the first person after the service to welcome us to the congregation, and she went on to say how long she,and others in the church, had been praying that my family would move our membership there.  That meant more than she knew.

Since the news of her death this past weekend, I thought about that she's witnessed and experienced in her 102 years - things that we've only read about in history books, she lived through.  Lorena and her husband Ralph both dedicated their lives to taking care of the church; a parallel that I see today in my parents. 

At every funeral I've attended where Bro. Jerry, our pastor, has spoken, he's always mentioned something about the deceased that others probably didn't know. At my Grandmother's funeral, he mentioned about how she would make pancakes at midnight on Thursday nights when my parents would come home from their 2nd shift job.  True to form, today, he mentioned how in 1943, Lorena was the Kentucky state archery champion.  How cool is that?

Lorena, I'm confidant that when you arrived in heaven Saturday morning, you heard the Lord say "Well done, good and faithful servant." You were such a positive role model for hundreds of young women that have attended Fourth Avenue over the years.  Your work is over, and now you can rest.