A firm and unshakable faith

"I believe we have two lives: The life we learn with... and the life we live with after that." (from "The Natural," a 1984 motion picture).

I knew a delightful woman in south St. Louis who has gone on to her reward. Katie played the ukulele; she talked so loud during worship (because of poor hearing) that sometimes the volume of her voice competed with mine during sermons. She was firmly on O.J. Simpson's side during his infamous double murder trial more than a decade ago.

"I just look into his face and know he's telling the truth," she said.

Arguing with her about it was futile. She was a person of firm opinion. I led a Bible study that she was in for several years and once brought a comparison of the Christmas narratives in Matthew and Luke; it was my intention to point out the differing accounts of what happened after Jesus' birth. Matthew had the family going immediately to Egypt; Luke had Jesus, Mary and Joseph lingering in Bethlehem for a week, going to Jerusalem for a Jewish rite of purification, and then returning to Nazareth. The accounts seem irreconcilable. Katie piped up in the middle of my discourse and said, "Why are we talking about this? I don't care about this. It's all true. Move on!"

We didn't see eye-to-eye on some things but she had my deepest respect. What she had been through in her life would have sunk most others.

When she was a young woman, she was left at the altar. Her intended husband, embarrassed at having lost his job and fearing the inability to support a wife, never showed up at the church. Katie was costumed in her brilliantly white wedding dress waiting. Being abandoned on your wedding day is something that stays with you. Yet Katie viewed it as a blessing; God, she believed, had someone else in mind for her.

One night, Katie received a call to tell her that one of her daughters had been murdered by an ex-husband. A parent losing a child is something that stays with you. Yet Katie, in the midst of her deep grief for her daughter, had a sense of compassion for her murderer. "God loves him too, you know," she told me. Remarkable.

Katie's husband, Norman, died many years before she did. It's the way of things. Women generally outlive us. (So how is it that they're the weaker sex? I've never understood that.) Katie told me once that when Norman died, half of her went into the grave with him.

All I know is, the half of her that was left for all of us who knew her was dynamic, fun and full of hope. She believed in a next life, in a consummation when all things will come out right, in a resurrection. She was, as I say, a person of firm and unshakable opinion.

When I think of Easter, my mind sometimes goes to Katie. I want a faith like hers.

Jeff Long is pastor of Centenary United Methodist Church in Cape Girardeau. Married with two daughters, he is of Scots and Swedish descent, loves movies, and is a lifelong fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers.