Making the Most of the Titus 2 Women God Puts in Our Lives

My son tore his coat a few weeks ago & I’ve been meaning to mend it.

My son tore his coat a few weeks ago & I’ve been meaning to mend it. I went down this morning to grab some matching thread.

I have a large stash in a set of vintage DMC display drawers that I inherited from a godly older woman in her 70s when she was moving.

Miss Bettie had organized the spools by color. I opened the base drawer.

In the dim basement lighting, I selected my green thread and returned upstairs. Oh! Not quite the green right shade. I ended up toting the entire drawer along so I could lay several colors against the garment in bright lighting. Thread always looks lighter when you unwind it from the spool.

All the while, I kept thinking of my friend. Miss Bettie is such a Titus 2 woman. Her cheerful attitude, her affection & respect toward her husband, and her deep, deep love for Jesus are all heart dispositions I’d like to emulate.

As a ministry couple, she & her pastor husband had made practicing hospitality a priority for decades. In her younger years, she had honed her homemaking and culinary skills, which made the habit seem effortless. They had a guest book for visitors to sign: a testimony of their steady faithfulness.

Sure, Miss Bettie has her sins, deficiencies, and flaws. Even in her 70s, she hasn’t reached perfection. That won’t happen until she’s with the Lord in Heaven. But she still is someone I’d like to model. Paul had recommended finding Christian examples to follow when he told the Corinthians, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” (1 Cor 11:1).

When I was a young woman in my 20s, I remember wanting to find an older woman to be my mentor. My husband gave me solid advice: Instead of trying to find one woman who is all-encompassing, look for several women with particular strengths you’d like to duplicate. This was helpful because if I hadn’t adopted this disposition, 25 years later, I’d still be looking.

Every woman has her strengths and weaknesses, myself included. I try to glean the best from older women whom I have seen consistently bear good fruit. And in the places where she is weak, I look at her with loving grace and pray that the Lord grow her there. I hope others do the same for me.

A few months before their house sold, Miss Bettie invited my mother-in-law and me to divide & transplant some of her perennials to our homes. My favourites were the several varieties of peonies. I planted them along the side of my house, with the aim to create a prayer garden named after her. It’s proved to be too shady a spot, I'm going to relocate them this spring. Peonies love lots of sun.