RELIGION —
It was her birthday, June 4. She would have been 91.
My son Tim, a forester, took me to the cemetery — the old one, in Wetumpka, our hometown. She grew up there, not far from the cemetery.
I called her a city girl. I was a country boy, living on a farm, 12 miles away, so far out in the country that we had to pipe sunshine in.
We were born in the same year, 1932. I in March, she in June.
Three years earlier, in 1929, Hohenberg Memorial became the first elementary school in Wetumpka with a teaching principal. It was a public school started by Morris Hohenberg in 1897, the first school with elementary grades in Wetumpka.
It was there that I saw Dean for the first time, when we enrolled in the first grade in 1938. Since we were seated alphabetically and her last name was Brown, we sat beside each other in Mrs. Oakley Melton’s classroom. Is love at first sight possible for a 6-year-old boy? I believe so.
We were married 14 years later. Was it destiny that we met there? Of course! Did God put us together on that front row? Oh yes! You could not in a thousand years dissuade me from believing that Dean was God’s gift to me.
I went to the cemetery for two reasons: to put fresh flowers on her grave and to pray. Of course, I could have prayed at home, but I like to pray at her grave. It is beside the grave of our son David, who was buried there in 1956. My mother and father are buried in that same plot, along with my brother-in-law John Flomer.
Near Dean’s grave is a lovely granite bench, placed there by women who loved Dean, women Dean loved. I feel blessed when I sit on that bench and pray. So, on her birthday I sat there and prayed, thanking God for allowing me the honor of serving Jesus by Dean’s side for almost 70 years. I praised Jesus for the mother Dean was for our sons, and for the winsome way she loved others who were hurting and led them to trust Jesus for help and healing. I thanked God for the women who loved Dean enough to put that bench beside her grave.
The women engraved four words from Dean’s favorite Bible verse on the bench: “Be Strong and Courageous” (Joshua 1:9). Those words describe the woman Dean became — an authentic servant of Jesus who inspired me and many others to become strong and courageous servants of Jesus.
On the bench, in the cemetery, I thanked God for helping Dean to finish strong, at age 88. I asked Him to help me conclude my life in the same way, so one day our sons can thank God their Mama and Daddy finished strong in the service of Jesus.
And, dear reader, you don’t have to go the cemetery to pray that prayer for yourself. You can pause now, wherever you are, and ask the good Lord to help you finish strong. I believe you will hear Him say what He said to me: “So glad you asked! That is the kind of prayer I love to answer! So, as I was with Joshua, I will be with you, helping you to love hurting and hopeless people into the Kingdom as a strong and courageous servants of Jesus.
On the bench, in the cemetery, I thanked God for helping Dean to finish strong, at age 88. I asked Him to help me conclude my life in the same way, so one day our sons can thank God their Mama and Daddy finished strong in the service of Jesus.
And, dear reader, you don’t have to go the cemetery to pray that prayer for yourself. You can pause now, wherever you are, and ask the good Lord to help you finish strong. I believe you will hear Him say what He said to me: “So glad you asked! That is the kind of prayer I love to answer. So, as I was with Joshua, I will be with you, helping you to love hurting and hopeless people into the Kingdom as a strong and courageous servant of Jesus.”