What's In a Name?

A couple of weeks ago, I was visiting my parents.  Unexpectedly, my Mom took me aside and gave me what has become one of the greatest gifts I've ever received - my Grandma's Bible.  As my Mom handed it to me she said, "I thought you could use this right now.  It seems like the perfect time to give it to you."  I felt my eyes well up with tears at the sentimentality of it.  My Grandma was one of the most precious, influential people in my life.  Next to this last year, losing her was the most difficult trial on this earth that I've endured.  Little did I know how affected I would be by this book in the days to come.

The next day I perused the well worn pages of her Bible, anticipating hundreds of passages highlighted, underlined and covered in her notes.  I couldn't have been more accurate in my estimations.  I knew my Grandma well; her life was a beautiful picture of God's Word.  She lived it every single day.  I came to the spot where her bookmark was, which was tattered with use, and saw that it was Psalm 25. There was a note written and dated September 18th, 1994, one week before she passed away that read "How true it has been this year."  Next to the note verses 16 through 18 were underlined: "Turn Yourself to me, and have mercy on me, For I am desolate and afflicted.  The troubles of my heart have enlarged; Oh, bring me out of my distresses!  Look on my affliction and my pain, And forgive all my sins."  I was emotional to say the least.

I knew that my Grandma suffered for many long years, being told her husband would die too many times to count, while instead enduring the life of being wife to a husband who spent a greater portion of the time in and out of hospitals and surgeries.  I knew it was difficult for her, but I never really understood.  I couldn't.  No one could.  As an adult now, I imagine that there were countless other trials she faced that she never shared or complained about.  That was just her way.  Elspeth Ferrier didn't worry about Elspeth Ferrier outside of her prayer closet.  She was too busy caring for her severely ill husband, working, preparing meals for the sick at church, spending time with her grandchildren (who never lacked her attention) and hosting numerous church functions and meetings in her home.  I'm really getting to see that now through the pages of her Bible.  This was a woman who suffered privately for most of her married life, but she did it so graciously.

My Grandma didn't know 15 years ago that today my eyes would scan those very same pages, that my tears would weep over the same spots that hers did, and that I would glean so much encouragement and wisdom in her blessed hand written notes in the margins...but God knew.  He planned it that way.  My parents didn't know 28 years ago that when they gave me the middle name Elspeth it would have such a deep and personal meaning, but God knew.  He planned it that way.

There is something so precious in knowing that I have suffered this much, but so did she.  She did it with such dignity, so quietly, so selflessly, all the while exhibiting Christ in so many ways.  I am ashamed, to say the least, that I have not followed in her footsteps so closely, but by God's grace in the years to come I would like Him to help me change that.  I would like to live up to my middle name, Elspeth and I would like to know that if Elspeth Ferrier were here, she would be proud that I carry her name.