Monday, May 12, 2014

June: Our Spiritual Grandmother

Dear Readers, this space will only hold five SEEDS interviews in the queue at a time. If you want to read older SEEDS vignettes please visit http://seventypalmsseeds.blogspot.com/  


 
June Redding
 
This SEEDS vignette will depart from our normal formula. This one occurred so naturally I just decided to use it as it happened. I employed very few modifications.
Occasionally I meet someone who just quietly carves out a corner in my heart. Love for them just grows easily and I wonder when I didn’t love them.
SEEDS has been designed to highlight women God is using. Ordinary women doing extraordinary things. SEEDS is a place for stories to be shared. Narratives of what God is doing in the spheres of everyday life. Through these stories I am learning that sometimes the extraordinary is really just the ordinary fleshed out with compassion and excellence.
Often I think about the women who followed Jesus during and through his ministry. Women who ministered quietly. Women who did what needed to be done, using the resources available. These women were no ordinary force to be reckoned with—they were the last at the cross. And first at the tomb. These ordinary women carried the Gospel message on this side of the cross first. They were the first to share the Good News.
Women carry the Good News still. Women I admire. Women I watch. Women I read. Ann Voskamp. Liz Curtis Higgs. Beth Moore. Donna Gaines. Priscilla Shirer. Kay Arthur. We live in an extraordinary era of God doing wonders, and these women are documenting the movement of his hand through their books, their blogs and their conferences.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
You have seen photographs of icebergs. Great snow and ice mountains complete with all the crags, cliffs and precipices. But beneath the chilling waters, underneath the broken shards of ice the underside of the mountain floats. And the underside of the mountain is larger and broader than the topside, but not readily visible.
Many of the women featured on SEEDS live on the underside of the iceberg. Rarely seen. Visibly hidden. But God is working through them; he is using them to move the kingdom forward. Inch by inch.
I want to introduce you to one of the women who lives on the underside of the iceberg.
The Young Adult group mentioned in the Chambers’ post Don’t Play Church recently gathered and visited someone incredibly special.
June Redding is the precious community grandmother of our church. June lost her sweetheart, Dan, last year to cancer. Dan and June were a beautiful team to watch. They were servants. They were an interesting contrast: Dan’s gruff to June’s sweet. But after a while you realized gruff was just the exterior of Dan. His interior—gentleness. And beneath the sweetness of June’s exterior runs a cord of backbone steel. I loved to watch them together. In the last year God has used that steel backbone to enable June to walk through her days. To stand up under daily life absent of Dan and his enormous presence.
 
Dan and June Redding
 
I did not give June the normal list of questions prepared for SEEDS women. Actually I hadn’t planned to, but you see God decides things and then clues you in on his plans. This time thankfully I was listening to his plan.
The Young Adult Group visited June one Sunday night. About eighteen of us piled in cars and drove the nine miles out to June’s farm. These wonderful kids rolled and unfolded out of the cars and carried enough food in for a Thanksgiving feast: meatloaf and chicken, corn pudding and green beans, salads and pasta, pies and cakes.
We told June to do nothing in preparation. Nothing. (She didn’t listen. Her apple upside-down cake sat warm on the stove.)
June greeted every single person; if she didn’t know their names (and many she did) she asked. She patted and loved and welcomed.
We prayed and she filled her plate first and sat down in the middle of the open living room, her plate piled high, and watched. Her sweet face displayed the joy in her heart. Missing Dan overwhelmed her that week, and I believe part of the joy in her eyes came from knowing what Dan would have thought about having all these young people in his house.
After dinner the group gathered around June’s tilted-back recliner. One of our leaders asked June to share with the group.
“What do you want me to share?”
“Anything you think we need to know.”
For the next forty-five minutes June talked to the group. There they (we) sat in a semi-circle around June. Some on the sectional, some on the fireplace hearth, some in chairs and some on the floor. And they listened. And some even asked questions.
“What do you think is the secret to happiness?”
“Well, I’ll tell you.” June counted the answers on her fingers. “Love God first. This is the most important. There’s not anything more important than this. Love each other. Be kind to each other. Take care of each other. Go to church.”
June shared stories of how she and Dan met, how they decided to get married, their work in the Red Cross. Her smile broadened when she recollected getting off an airplane in Texas and seeing Dan. Apparently he was extremely handsome in his cowboy hat.
More than once the group laughed. Out loud. More than once June told stories no one expected.
We left that day far richer than when we came. We left that day far wiser than when we came. We left that day understanding a little more that life with Christ is anything but boring—it is an adventure.

Before we left someone rephrased the happiness question.
“What is the most important element in any relationship? What advice would you give?
June didn’t miss a beat. Those precious fingers counted off the reasons once again.
“Love God. That’s the most important. Nothing is more important than a relationship with him. Love each other. Be kind to each other.”
June lives out her answers.
On Sunday mornings she arrives far earlier than anyone else. She stands in the kitchen with an apron looped over her neck and tied behind her neck. Patiently and methodically she stands and stirs the scrambled eggs. Pan after pan. For a long time she carried Nanny her coffee in a green mug long before Nanny even asked.
June is a servant.
June does things no one sees.
June loves the young people of our church.
We talk a great deal at our church about Love Does. Love doesn’t just talk; it’s not just about words. Love Does.
June does.