I never knew her name. But I doubt I’ll forget her. She would enter the sanctuary just on time and walk to her habitual seat in the front. Her walker was left standing in the center aisle as she shuffled into the row. She was petite, and her body bowed with age. She always stood for the worship music, supported by a hand on the seat in front of her. In the dim light, I would often see her other hand raised in worship, her wrinkled fingers bent with arthritis.
Great is Thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed Thy hand hath provided. Great is Thy faithfulness Lord unto me. She stood in awe, in reverence, in honor of God’s glory. Her hand lifted in tribute, in affirmation, in adoration.
How many decades had she sung these words? What had those hands seen that now lifted in praise to her faithful God?
I never knew her name. I never knew her story. But I could imagine. No one is immune to the joys and sorrows that afflict humanity. Perhaps she’d had children or a husband. Perhaps she’d lived out her years going to bed alone. Surely she’d had her questions and her doubts, had weathered sickness and hardship and loneliness. She’d have stared down her own sin and begged God for mercy.
But surely she had also seen God enter her story. Seen him provide. Seen him comfort. Seen him transform her heart. Seen his faithfulness again and again. In better and worse. In sickness in health. In richer and poorer. All the days of her life.
So, for all she had seen, she was still here. Still standing. Still lifting up her hands in worship.
When the day comes that my hands wear the creases of age, I hope the same will be said of me. I pray age will not bear the fruit of bitterness or cynicism but rather of the fruit of joy, gentleness, and hope. I know there will be plenty of stories to tell or opinions to be voiced, but I pray all of them center on one refrain: Great is Thy faithfulness.