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At the first church I served, I led a Bible study every week with a handful of older women. Supposedly, I was the one with the knowledge, but I learned so much from those women and from their questions, insights and stories.
One of those women died last year. Ev had a deep faith; she simply trusted God. She would tell stories of waiting for her beloved to come home from war, about raising a family, about her generosity to the church, the ways she forgave people who’d hurt her, about surviving cancer, about how she wasn’t afraid to die, about the goodness of God.
Ev was at least 50 years older than I was. Yet our friendship gave me perspective and insight. She gave me courage to just trust God, to love deeply, to sing with abandon, and to not be afraid of death. I could never have learned that from a blog post, a book, or even from my best college girlfriend.
My older friends have a view from much further along the road. Their resilience and strength, and even their limits and prejudices and fears, can teach me about my own.
This message is excerpted from “Multi-generational moments with bold women” by Sara Olson-Smith from the March 22, 2024, blog of the Women of the ELCA.