“Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord will be praised. Give her the reward of her labor, and let her works praise her at the city gates.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

First, as a matter of business, the schedule for the next month is going to be a bit topsy-turvy. My family will have the chance to be out of town for a couple of short stints, I’ll be gone an entire week chaperoning a camp, and in the next five weeks, I’m only preaching three times because of pre-scheduled guest speakers. Some days I’ll get blogs posted, some days I won’t. Some days we’ll be in Exodus as scheduled, some days we won’t. Next week, for instance, I probably won’t post anything until Friday, if that. The summer schedule is in full swing for us, and I’m going to do my best to put my attention where it needs to be most…which won’t always be here. Fear not, though, come August things will settle back down into our more normal rhythm. Now to the task at hand…

I’ve gotten started at a new church as pastor twice in my life. Both times there were a handful of people the group serving as ambassadors for us insisted we absolutely had to meet right away. In both cases these folks were the recognized spiritual giants of the congregation. When we were getting started here in Oakboro, one of those individuals was Peggy Carey. We said, “See you later,” to her just a few weeks ago. There was another, though, who the search team was just as insistent that we all meet and as soon as possible. We pulled into her house on Main Street, walked into her sun porch, and were promptly greeted with a loud, “Heeey, Honey!” I knew right away that Ma Mae was indeed someone who was going to be worth knowing. She still is. And she turns 99 tomorrow. This is just a Happy Birthday note.

Ninety-nine is a lot of years on this planet. I mean, in comparison to the actual age of the thing, it doesn’t register as long enough for the phrase “the blink of an eye” to be even remotely accurate. But by comparison with the longevity most folks are able to experience, it’s a really long time. And we live in an era when someone who has made 99 trips around the sun has seen an almost unbelievable amount of change come to the world. Over that amount of time our culture has gone from where indoor plumbing and electricity were still considered luxury items to where you can now buy glasses that allow you to take pictures and upload them to social media. We’ve gone from where flight was something that only a handful of people in the world (by comparison to the total population anyway) had ever experienced to the point that some companies now offer commercial trips to space. My goodness, we are ten years past the distant future envisioned in Back to the Future 2. I’m still waiting for my flying car.

Over that time, Mae has experienced a lot of life. Ninety-nine years of it, in fact. Far more than that, though, she’s impacted a lot of people. If you were to go talk to her today, you could be forgiven for thinking she’s had an easy road through life to result in her being so optimistic and loving and generous with her time and attention. You would be mistaken. She’s faced more than her fair share of hardships. She lost her husband when she was a young mother with four young children. She went on to raise those four children by herself (although in Oakboro, in that era, nobody really raised children by themselves). She’s faced several medical scares over the years, multiple of which should have resulted in her going home to be with the Lord. And she worked as a second grade teacher for 25 years. There is a full generation’s worth of people in Oakboro and beyond who had Mrs. Brooks for second grade. And they all still love her. All of them. I hear about it regularly.

Yet in facing all of these and more she has thrived right on through them. I’ll gladly tell you, although she would probably do it even faster than me, that the reason for this is simple. Oh, it wasn’t easy, but the reason is simple. She trusted in Jesus all along the way. Mae’s faith and her love for Jesus are, if not the first thing you notice about her, are something that will very quickly becomes impossible to ignore. If you don’t pick it up just in conversation, she’ll eventually bring up the subject on her own. It really is the theme of her life. And make no mistake, hers is not some mostly theoretical or merely spoken love for Jesus. It is the absolutely genuine engine that drives everything she does and shapes every part of who she is.

It was the theme of her life as she raised her kids. As a result, all four of them are committed followers of Jesus. So are most of their kids and grandkids. It is a rare thing and takes a special person to see the faith passed so effectively and so completely from one generation to the next. My own grandma did it which is probably why I resonate personally so much with Mae’s family. I don’t know of many other families as large as hers where the passing has been so thorough. It takes a whole lot of the humble and genuine love of Jesus to see that kind of thing happen. It also takes a lot of prayer.

Speaking of that, prayer is perhaps what Mae is known for more than just about anything else. When we were first being told about her, that was the thing that came up more than anything else. The message we got was clear: If you have a situation you want pray for, if you don’t have Mae praying for you, it’s probably not going to turn out the way you want.

Mae is an active prayer and believes with all her heart in the power that has to change lives and shape whole communities. She has seen and experienced the impact of prayer in her own life numerous times and has stories upon stories to tell you about it. She has prayed for so many and for so long that her collection of stories go well beyond just her own experiences too. She has never been one to pray only by herself, though. She understands that prayer is intended to be a group exercise. As a result, she has been actively praying with people for a very long time. More specifically, she has been praying with a group of ladies for years. They even have a name for the group: the Two or More Prayer Gathering. The collection of ladies has varied over the years, but Mae has been the driving force as they gather every Monday morning around her dining room table and lift up this community. I would be willing to give a lot of the credit for Oakboro’s being the kind of community that it is and has been for a very long time to that group of prayer warriors.

Mae’s understanding of the importance of praying with others has come directly out of her understanding of the value and importance of the church. She loves the church. She loves her church. Oh my does she love her church. She has been an active member of First Baptist Oakboro for generations. Even in this season when getting there regularly for worship is a rare treat, she is still functioning actively from home. Even at nearly 99 she still tunes in each Sunday morning on Facebook to watch our livestream. I’ll occasionally get calls on Sunday afternoon asking who this or that person she saw and didn’t recognize was and what their story is so she can be praying for this or that. And you can rest assured that when Easter comes around, there had better be a big group of seats available because unless Jesus returns, she’s going to be there with her family. Like, all of her family. It is amazing to see.

And by “active member,” I mean just that. She has served in all kinds of capacities. She’s worked Vacation Bible School, she’s taught Sunday school, she’s led the women’s ministry, she’s sung in the choir, and on and on the list goes. Perhaps her most important work, though, has been her active efforts to disciple others in obedience to the Lord’s command. This has most notably taken the form of a group of ladies she discipled for years. They have a name for themselves too: the Proverbs 31 Wannabes, or simply “Wannabes” for short. These ladies all follow Jesus, serve their church, and have raised their own kids to do the same. Because that’s what Mae demonstrated for them.

It’s what she is still demonstrating. And, should the Lord give her another ten years, she’ll be doing it for all of those as well. That’s simply who Mae is. She loves Jesus so much that she has committed her life to living out that love in meaningful and practical ways for the benefit of the people around her. And after nearly 99 years, she’s gotten pretty good at it. That’s a good thing too, because when the day comes that Jesus does finally call her home, it’s what she’ll spend the rest of eternity doing. Not many people get to practice for Heaven as long as Mae has. Even fewer actually take the opportunity and do it. But Mae has. She’s still doing it. And this whole community is all the better for it. So is God’s kingdom. Happy birthday, Mae. You’ve earned it.