Saturday, March 8, 2008

You finally were the one to go Selma.

For my eight years as pastor Selma Ferris has responded to every death in the church with "I should have been the one to go!". Last week she finally went home to be with her Lord. This was the deepest longing of her heart. She loved her family, her friends and her church. She diligently used the time He gave her on this earth to labor in prayer and witness for him. When she would ask "Why didn't He take me instead?" We all knew the reason.

WHBC has lost a great prayer warrior. It has also lost an example of how to live the Christian life. Selma was saved in her forties through the wordless book. Her Bible was underlined, circled, dated with the dates of classes and messages, and most of all well read. She "encouraged" her children and grandchildren in their devotions, and that encouragement was fortified by positive and negative consequences. She was burdened for the lost of the whole world and over her sixty years of earthly service to the Lord she prayed for scores of missionaries and laboured to see her family make professions of faith. She was a hard worker despite not being in good health for much of middle age. She hated to be idle and was often crocheting, praying or reading her Bible.

Some have called her a giant, and in many ways she was. But the Bible never speaks well of giants, their accomplishments are credited to their strength. Selma would never want to take the credit, she would want it to go to her Lord, and so it does.