This week I was honored by an unexpected celebrity visitor to our church. I learned she had stopped with her driver the previous week and did a walk-through, but unfortunately I had already left for the day and just missed seeing her. So I was doubly pleased when she appeared again this Sunday, well before the service began.
You might know her. She’s been a lifelong Fairfield County resident. Or perhaps I should put it this way, she is a long life Fairfield County resident. You see, in a few months she will celebrate her 100th birthday. Aunt Annabelle, my father’s older sister, never married and has lived a humble and quiet life caring for others. Much of her adult life she helped with the farm house duties at the Grubb home built by her great great great…grandfather over 200 years ago; a proud brick house thriving today on the banks of the Oakthorpe reservoir. In this age of world mobility, I’m strangely grateful that our family has remained put—planted in the rich soil of central Ohio. The farm house, constructed of kiln-fired bricks hand packed and fired on site and artfully lain by my ancestors, continues to be filled with life by Katie Grubb Iser who, along with her husband Josh, stewards the home. Their son and daughter circle the same yard in play that has been trampled by a dozen generations of Grubb children since the early 1800’s.
It’s incredible really to imagine Josh and Katie’s children scampering from the same old house today to watch satellites glide across the very sky into which Annabelle and Marvin gazed aghast as an early bi-plane sputtered overhead.
Aunt Annabelle is 99 years old and looking forward to her 100th birthday in December. Although 100 is the birthday that gets Willard Scott’s attention, I’m totally impressed with her 99. I mean if you have 99 of anything you’re on your way to a respectable collection. Whether its 99 Barbie Dolls or 99 Corvettes, 99 is a respectable number. So I’m as impressed with her 99th year as I will be with her 100th. If I live to see her hit 105 or 106, I promise to be even more impressed. But for now, she has earned celebrity status in my book simply because she continues to show up. It’s been said the way to succeed at anything is to continue showing up after others have given up.
Think about it—born in 1916 as WWI, the ‘war to end all wars’, was heating up in Europe. Air travel was white-knuckling its way onto the front pages of the Gazette and steam locomotives were the modern form of inter-state travel. The only non-dirt roads in existence were the brick streets flowing down from Lancaster’s Main and High. Today, my oldest son oversees the maintenance of more than 360 miles of Fairfield County’s paved highways.
So when Aunt Annabelle quietly entered our church service this past week, it struck a chord of continuity deep in my soul. In this age of fleeting fads and stressful schedules, it’s good to know there are only a few things that will really matter 100 years from now…and it has little to do with innovative technology or advanced transportation. When I asked Annabelle what she considers the most important aspect of her long life, she said it was her life-long faith in Jesus Christ. What truly matters has been and always will be who we look to for spiritual strength because, after all, we are all on our journey toward eternity.
Paul echoes this thought as he reflected on his life saying, “I reckon everything as complete loss for the sake of what is so much more valuable, the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have thrown everything away; I consider it all as mere garbage, so that I may gain Christ.” (Philippians 3:8 GNB)
So when a celebrity of time, a godly centenarian, shuffles into our midst, it should cause a realignment of our busy orbits.
I believe it’s one way God gently reminds us all of what truly matters. Be blessed, RG
Read Ron’s column, Simple Faith, each Saturday on the Faith Page (page 3) of the Lancaster Eagle Gazette, or visit www.lancastereaglegazette.com.