We are the people of his pasture...

(blogged with a little help from my dear friend)

Saturday, as I busied myself with as much normalcy as possible, I was thinking about my dear cousin Anna.
What would Anna Do?

In her early years she was inspired to become a nurse in Birmingham, Alabama.

When John’s brother, her 20 year old cousin, and several others close to her died in WWII, to her mother's sorrow, she was inspired to join the war effort. In North Africa she would work in a field unit burn center as Patton fought nearby. Day temperatures reached 130 degrees. Its hard to imagine the suffering. The bedsheets of the wounded doubled as table clothes for the staff, who dined on military meals prepared by a drafted chef from the Waldorf Astoria.
Later she was transferred to Pisa, Italy and stationed by the leaning tower there for the European War until getting a transfer to Japan. On board the Sea Cat, she learned Japan had surrendered and the ship was rerouted to New York City, where she would be photographed with other nurses on the cover of the New York Daily Mirror, 1945.

Coming home to Tennessee, she was rerouted once again by a brother’s invitation for a visit to his home in Missouri. It would be at a party held by his wife that she would meet and three months later marry her husband.
She never reached Japan or Tennessee on that journey and instead settled in Missouri with her husband to have 4 children.
When her youngest girls were 9 and 11 and her husband was 54, the car they were traveling in was hit by a drunk driver. Upon waking days later in the hospital, she learned that the three others were killed and already buried. Again, its hard to imagine the anguish she must have felt. She was left with her son of 16, and her daughter of 15 to persevere. Her living children still thrive today along with 7 grandchildren, their spouses, and 18 great grandchildren who range in age from 1 to 11.

Although she has recently been diagnosed with bone cancer, at 91 her doctor says its not terminal. She still drives daily to her favorite hamburger joint with a friend. Those hamburgers will get her one day though, its just a matter of time.

Through all her adventures and experiences and tragedy, she has weathered each storm with God beside her. She has seen, touched, smelled, and felt more calamity than most will ever endure. Yet it is evident she is held in God’s gentle hand and he has kept her lifted up and inspired to be an inspiration to others. Always with a positive joyful heart, Christ’s light still shines as bright as ever through her.

Psalm 95:6-7
6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.