The most beautiful women I have met

In yesterday’s blog I wrote about beauty. Let me review a couple of my main thoughts:

• There is nothing wrong with outward beauty
• Inward beauty, however, is more important
• After a certain point, outward beauty begins to deteriorates

Inward beauty can progress every day of your life. It’s true! If you know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, you can become more beautiful every single day the rest of your life. When it comes to inward beauty some of the most beautiful women I have ever known are elderly. Let me tell you about them.

Mrs. Cain was a dear elderly lady that attended the church I grew up in back in Akron, Ohio. She was a very close friend of our family. My grandparents did not live near us for most of my childhood and as a result, Mrs. Cain became my surrogate grandmother. When I was little, she would baby sit me on a regular basis. I loved going to Mrs. Cain’s house. We would play the game Cootie together for hours. Usually, it was a Saturday night and her favorite television show was on that evening. It was the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Mrs. Cain’s favorite part was the introduction. As the theme music echoed, “You’re going to make it after all,” Mary Tyler Moore would throw her hat up into the air and it would freeze into a still shot. Mrs. Cain loved that. She would laugh every time. Though she could not read music, Mrs. Cain played the piano by ear. She would always sit down and play and sing her favorite hymn, “He the pearly gates will open so that I may enter in, for He purchased my redemption and forgave me all my sin.” It was a very sad day for my family when Mrs. Cain died. Whenever Mrs. Cain would greet you she would do so by saying, “Well, Scott" (or whatever your name was). I could just picture Mrs. Cain taking her last breath on earth, opening her eyes in heaven and looking into the face of her precious Savior and with her huge smile declaring, “Well, Jesus!”

Another beautiful woman I know is named Agnes Bracker. Agnes’ husband served as the pastor of the Osceola Grace Brethren Church in Indiana where she still attends. He has long since gone home to heaven. Agnes is just the dearest, sweetest lady I know (next to my wife, of course). She is a lover of everyone and was my most enthusiastic cheerleader during the nine years that I served as the Senior Pastor of the Osceola Church. No one could possibly have been a bigger encourager to me than Agnes was over those years. We would include her in all of our birthday celebrations and she would join in just like she had always been part of the family (paper fights and all). We still get to visit with Agnes once or twice a year since her daughter lives in Myerstown. We just adore Agnes. The thing I will always appreciate most about this dear woman of God is that she is without a doubt the greatest prayer warrior I have ever met. She would walk every day and pray every step of the way. If there was ever an issue where I needed fervent prayer from a true prayer warrior, Agnes is who I went to with the issue. She and Mrs. Cain are two of the most beautiful women I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing.