REJOICE IN THE LORD!
When I share a story it is as I remember. I can’t remember what is in the mind of those I talk about but I can tell what I observe. My sister Jean was 15 years older than I. Very attractive, full of energy and funny. As the eldest of the girls in our large family of 7 boys and 7 girls, Jean was the primary helper in raising and caring for her younger siblings. I know that she could have married but for her reasons only, she didn’t. Her being single was an advantage for me and those who came after me.

The younger kids would not have done things and gone places if it were not for Jean. We went shopping, to the movies and the baseball games at the old Wrigley Field to watch the Angels play and later we became Dodger fans. When I was about 20, Jean and I moved into an apartment together. After the siblings grew up, she began to dote on little nieces and nephews. She even attended their school programs. When they grew up she then focused her attention on the great nieces and nephews.

Jean became a Sunday School Teacher in her 30's and is still teaching the 6th grade class at 85. She has filled positions in the women’s ministry, was the church wedding hostess and in her early 80's was the VBS Director more than once. Today she is a greeter and sits on a tall stool so she can be seen and just like the ‘energizer bunny’ she just keeps going and going and going.

If you would ask Jean, she would tell you, she has had a full life and thank God she never had a husband, because she wouldn’t have been able to give him much of her time. She has had so many places to go, things to do and people to see! Another mission in life is to save cats!
"And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seem good to the potter to do" Jeremiah 18:4; Whatever state we find ourselves in we are to let the Lord mold us and make us His own.

I referred to the years after highschool and before marriage as my years of ‘single blessedness’! I enjoyed this time of growing up! I had a job, opened charge accounts and eventually, I learned to drive and bought a car. Took short trips, flew in an airplane and even took a train. I enjoyed these things with Jean and never allowed peer pressure to take me where I didn’t want to go.

By the time I married I was ready for a husband, a home and children. God is good! Whatever we choose to do, as long as we walk with the Lord, he will continually bless us. However, a single woman has an opportunity to serve the Lord in a way that a married woman cannot! Perhaps you ask yourself; "What can we do as single women"? "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice!" Philippians 4:4.

Jesus uses allegories because all the details in the story are relevant. Here he speaks of the robber and or thief. They sneak in to steal and kill and have no concern except for what they want. "I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly"; John 10:10b! Jesus is talking about the good shepherd.. Jesus uses the door because He is the door! He loves His sheep and wants them to feel safe and secure. "I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me"! John 10:14. Whatever way we choose to live whether it is married or single, God holds us up in high esteem as we walk hand in hand with Him. His love is everlasting! Jane Ann