Not just the biblical Ruth and Sarah, but a Ruth and a Sarah that I have known and loved personally – two women who have modeled for me a grace in the midst of trial, flexibility in the midst of change – two things that I’m learning are a big struggle for me.

Ruth was my grandmother – my dad’s mom. After she died in 1998, I felt very fortunate to receive her china cabinet, dining room table and chairs. It was special to me, because I sat at it many a Sunday afternoon after church eating roast beef, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, and rolls with butter and jelly. That lunch tradition, I think, was such solace to me in the midst of the divorced home of my childhood.

When the dining room set became mine, I purposed to do just as she had done – feed my family and others around it, creating tradition and comfort. Almost every person that has come into my home has had a meal around that table, or been served Thanksgiving dinner on the china from the cabinet. It has given me much joy to remember my “Memo” in that way.

And she is not unlike the Ruth of Scripture, who followed her bitter mother-in-law faithfully and submissively after the unexpected death of her husband. Ruth also followed the God of that mother-in-law; a new God for her – the God of the Hebrews. My grandmother, Ruth, also followed and served that Hebrew God faithfully through a life filled with trial and change. Her father was killed in a wagon accident, and later she lost her mom and a couple of siblings to the influenza epidemic of 1918. She would have been 11 years old at the time, and already crippled from polio herself. She was then raised by her older brothers and sisters.

What I remember about her most was her surrendered spirit. Her life was difficult and yet she was always content, peaceful, and even jovial. She was a realist, but she also had hope. I cherish the memory of sitting next to her in church singing old hymns, as well as playing Skip Bo with her at the kitchen table over a Coke – but most of all the Sunday lunches around her table.

Well…that table has been well-loved and daily used for the last 12 years. Not only do we feed lots of people around it, but we’ve also done our schoolwork on it for that long as well. The chairs are literally on their last legs. In fact, one poor soul got a surprise this last Christmas Day when he sat in my grandfather’s old arm chair at the head of the table and it proceeded to split right in half.

I think it was around that time that I began to pray about getting a new dining room set.

And then it seemed like only a few weeks later my cousin, Megan, emailed to ask us if we were interested in her old dining room furniture. Hmmmmm……

It had been her mom and dad’s (my aunt and uncle’s) dining room furniture from nearly 35 years ago, and she had recently purchased a new set for her new home. All we needed to do was figure out a way to transport it from Charlotte, NC to our home in MA. We also needed to figure out what to do about grandmother Ruth’s furniture. It was not an easy decision, but we posted it on Craigslist. As soon as the inquiries flooded in, I began to feel sick about getting rid of this furniture full of memories and tradition. The china cabinet sold to a nice young married grad student couple here in town. Robert helped them load it into his truck and drove it to their apartment for them. I made sure they knew it had been my grandmother’s, and definitely felt comforted when the young wife was taking lots of care that it wasn’t scratched in the moving process.

As I cleaned it out and moved it a tad to sweep underneath, I found the above drawing crumpled up behind it. Kayla had drawn this a year or so before and somehow it had gotten trapped between the cabinet and the wall. I love having this rendering of it – complete with the outlines of wine glasses in front of the Lenox China plates propped up against the back wall and a tea pot from Crabtree and Evelyn that even sort of matches the china. But I still hating parting with it – even if it was for something better. And it certainly didn’t help when my 15 year old said, “I was hoping that would be mine someday.”

Part of the need to sell the old furniture was in order to finance a very spur-of-the-moment decision to drive to North Carolina in Robert’s truck, rent a UHaul trailer there, load it up with my Aunt Sarah and Uncle John’s dining room furniture now living at my cousin Megan’s house, and then turn around and drive it back to Massachusetts.

(Apologies to all friends in North Carolina for not calling or visiting. This was a very quick and focused trip!)

Megan received her mom and dad’s old set in a similar fashion. Her mom, my Aunt Sarah, passed away after a difficult battle with cancer in the late 80’s. After Megan married Fred and they bought a home of their own, she was given the opportunity by her dad to have it transported, if she wanted, from Dallas to Charlotte. Her own family has been enjoying it ever since, but recently decided to replace it with something that suits their new home better.

Megan’s mom, my Aunt Sarah, was not unlike the Sarah of Scripture. Beautiful on the inside and out, she was a strong, yet fun – conscientious, yet carefree lady. I was fortunate to spend time with her on several occasions – in good times and bad. Once, when I was about 9 or 10 years old, my dad took us to Aunt Sarah and Uncle John’s house in either Atlanta or Mississippi for Christmas. My own parents had been divorced for about 2 years then. Aunt Sarah must have overheard me talking to my mom back in Texas on the phone, telling her I was homesick, because a while later she came to me, hugged me, and told me that if I ever felt sad or wanted to talk about anything, she was there to listen. I don’t really think I knew how to respond to this sort of love and comfort at the time, but I have never forgotten it. I wish I could tell her how much that meant to me.

I don’t know all the details of her life, hardly any actually, but like Abraham’s Sarah, I know she was often called to move to new places away from friends and family, and was even put in at least a couple of unsettling situations due to the choices of others. Her final trial with cancer was compounded by other trials, and yet the two or three times I was with her in those final years, she remained loving, gracious, and still focused on others in spite of her own pain.

One of those times was at a swim meet for my cousin Megan. I happened to be in Dallas for a conference at the time, and Aunt Sarah invited me to go to the meet during some of my free time. As I walked into the high school pool area and sat in the bleachers with her, I couldn’t help but notice that the cancer, now in her bones, had caused her to shrink in height. She didn’t look quite the same as the Aunt Sarah I had grown up watching and admiring, and now I admired her even more as she set her self-consciousness aside to cheer for and focus on Megan.

It was really fun to hang out with Megan and her kiddos this week while the men loaded up the furniture. (Notice Robert and Fred’s drenched clothes and hair? It was HOT in Charlotte that day.) Megan reminds me so much of her mom – actively loving and caring for three little ones, warmly hosting Robert and me, volunteering at Vacation Bible School, slowly decorating and putting together an absolutely beautiful home, etc. Her life is brimming over with responsibility and activity, and yet she handles it all with grace, humor, authenticity, and love.

Another thing I remember about my Aunt Sarah is that she faithfully wrote my Grandmother Ruth letters. I never saw her do this, but I watched my grandmother receive them in the mail with joy and then read them aloud at times to catch us all up on the cousins. Even as a child I remember being impressed that Aunt Sarah would do this for her mother-in-law. It connected them in a special way in my mind.

In our weekly couples Bible study this summer we’ve been studying the book of Hebrews. I have been soaking it up like crazy. What an amazing book of the Bible, so rich with the incredible work of Christ on our behalf written to the Hebrews who are losing sight of this work – wanting to return to their old ways of sacrifices and priests. They didn’t like change. They were entrenched in their traditions and could not let go – even for something better.

Silly as it may seem, the pang of selling Memo’s old furniture made me understand their struggle. I like tradition. I trust what is old over what is new – even when what is new is better, more beautiful, more secure.

Thankfully, I not only have the Ruth and Sarah of Scripture to encourage me toward Christ, toward selfless surrender to Him, because He is the better way – the only way. I also have two very personal and tangible examples of this in my own family. And isn’t it kind of my Lord to still allow me to have some “old stuff” to remind me of the new and better way?

…so much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. The former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing, but Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever.

Hebrews 7: 22-28

Oh! And special thanks to Dan and Jessie who hosted us in Maryland on the way down and back. I can’t believe I forgot to take pictures of you guys in your new house!