Blessings !!!

As I shared in a previous post ---

my mother-in-law Elizabeth

had surgery to remove a brain hematoma

on July 15.

The surgery was successful.

However, she was very frail and

other health issues arose

and

she passed from this life to

Real Life

one week later on July 22.

As we have gone through all the things you do

when someone dies ---

making calls to family members to let them know,

putting together the plans for the funeral,

feeding the multitudes,

sleeping some of the multitudes,

smiling, laughing, crying ---

we know this: we are blessed!!!

and then

blessed some more!

We have been surrounded by friends, family,

church family, community

and lifted up and carried through

the entire past 2 weeks.

How awesome to have, not one or two people,

but literally dozens and dozens of people,

write, e-mail, call

and tell us what a grand lady Elizabeth was

and

what she meant to each of them every time

they were around her.

We have heard some sweet, sweet stories

of how they all remember her.

She taught Sunday school,

led women's classes,

taught VBS,

was a faithful choir member,

(with a beautiful alto voice),

she was a lifetime PTA member,

room mother for literally decades,

and active in everything

that happened in her community,

wherever that happened to be at

the time.

Amazing!

It's so strange to see your parents through

the eyes of others.

And that's especially true when you

see them through the eyes of those

who knew them when they were

much, much younger.

It's been quite sweet to get a glimpse of

the person Elizabeth was waaaaay

before any of us knew her.

I spent a lot of my early years

of knowing Elizabeth

kind of grieving

because she wasn't the kind of mother-in-law

I had always wanted.

I wanted someone who would call me just to visit,

ask me to go

shopping with her,

or to get a pedicure together.

Someone who would go to

"girl's night out"

with me. Or maybe to a movie.

A"let's do lunch"

kind of mother-in-law.

None of those things ever happened.

She was not that kind of woman.

And after several years, I gave up on that

"dream"

That just was not Elizabeth.

Thankfully --- many, many years ago I discovered

something absolutely phenomenally, wonderfully,

tremendously

BETTER

that Elizabeth had given me.

A way better gift

than doing any of those things together.

I discovered that she gave me

THE BEST

she had to give....

she raised a son,

took him to church,

laid a foundation of faith in him,

prayed for him faithfully

and then

handed him off to me !!!,

a silly and not so wise girl,

(at the age of 20)

and

Trusted in the LORD

to direct our paths.

Elizabeth gave to me

a loving husband,

a fantastic father to our kids,

a warrior,

a mighty man of God !

William Rosser

is who he is today

because of the kind of faithful

mother Elizabeth was to him.

For THAT and so much more !!!

I love her and I pay tribute to her..

Her children arise and call her blessed;

her husband also, and he praises her:

"Many women do noble things,

but you surpass them all."

Charm is deceptive, and

beauty is fleeting;

but a woman who fears the LORD
is to be praised.

Give her the reward she has earned,

and let her works bring her praise

at the city gate.

Proverbs 31:28-31

Gwyn