Dear people of God:

I’ve been thinking of Frances lately. I knew her when I was in college; she was a professor at the Medical School, and to most of the world she was Dr. M–, the challenging teacher. But to me and others in my church, she was Frances.

She and I, and several others, went to a Bible study early on Friday morning; I seem to remember it was at 6:30. The Pastor would bring doughnuts and one of us would make coffee; we met in the Church Library and talked about the Bible. We were a diverse group: the Pastor, a homemaker, a physician, a sociology professor, a media specialist, Frances, and me. We read a lot of different books of the Bible and had a wonderful time, because we brought a wide variety of viewpoints to the discussion.

But the thing I remember most about Frances was the time she spent looking after the flowers at the Church building. This high-powered professor of medicine would get on her knees at the church planting annuals every Spring, and throughout the season would keep all the flower beds carefully weeded. One year she told me that the only time she could find that Spring to plant was late at night; she was out there digging in the ground in the middle of the night and the boys at the fraternity house next door came to ask her what she was doing. “I’m planting flowers.” “You know this is the Church’s property, don’t you?” She said she did. She told me she thought it was nice that the guys at SAE were looking out for the Church.

When people plant flowers at the Church, when they water them or weed them, when they want their Church building to look bright and happy, I think of Frances. As far as I know, she wasn’t recruited by the Building and Grounds Committee and the Pastor didn’t tell her to do it. She loved her Church and she loved flowers, so it came to her naturally. Thank you, God, for Frances.

Pastor Bob

During the COVID-19 restrictions, I am posting special messages from time to time. This one is from May 20, 2020.