Mrs. Ruby, Saga 1

I awoke this morning to the sound of Mrs. Ruby calling my name from the creative channels of my mind.  She is the heroine in my latest story. I had planned to do a quick story on her about giving up when life gets hard and then I had planned to move on to another piece.  Mrs. Ruby, it seems, is not contented to go quietly off into the sunset of her debut story. She intends to be around for a while. So with that said,  it is into  the throes of Mrs. Ruby's misfortune, we go to see what escapades she and I find to get into as she wrestles with her waning faith.  

As we enter her story, we find that she is a mighty disheartened lady right about now... (sigh) 

"What happened to cause her faith to become shattered and weak?" is probably what you are asking yourself. Well let's delve right back into our story. This is where we will take up in the life of Mrs. Ruby.

…Everybody in the neighborhood loved Mrs. Ruby. No one ever had an unkind word to say about her and her neighbors were decidedly bothered about losing her. However, their being bothered did not begin to cover how Mrs. Ruby felt about it herself.

     Here she was getting ready to move to a nursing home in Minnesota, after giving a life of service to the LORD and to the neighborhood.  She had to leave everybody that she has known most of her life. Ruby had not felt this bereft and alone since her mother died back when her son, Matt, was 7 years old. Ruby had always loved the LORD and HE had always taken care of her.  That’s why Mrs. Ruby could not believe that something would not happen at the last minute so that she would be able to stay in her own home surrounded by her longtime friends and her church family. Still as moving day got closer and closer, her hopes began to dwindle. 

      Perhaps, I am speaking too rapidly for you to keep up with me. I apologize for that. I do tend to get a bit scatterbrained whenever I find myself in extremely emotional situations.  So, let me slow down and start at the beginning. Mrs. Ruby’s yard was one of the showplaces in her neighborhood and had always been, as far back as most people could remember.   She was proud of her yard and deservedly so, as she had once remarked to her friend, Gladys from down the street, “I don’t have anything else to keep me busy now that I am retired, Matt has married and moved to Minnesota and Sam, bless his heart, has passed on.” Ironically, it was the yard, or her meticulous care of it that caused Mrs. Ruby to have to give up her home. How could a yard lead up to her having to leave her home? Well, here is the way it went.

        She and her husband, Sam, had always kept their yard immaculate, but with his passing, that left Mrs. Ruby to do both of their jobs on the yard or let to it go. She opted, at first, in memory of her Sam, to keep the yard as immaculate as it had always been kept. Then later, she decided to keep it up because she liked doing it and it occupied her. Even when the doctor told her to wear a hat and spend no more than two hours a day out in the sun and despite Matt’s mild scolding, she had doggedly decided to keep her yard. She did condescend to wearing the straw bonnet though. Yet she stayed out in the sun for about four hours every day. 

    On this particular day, Mrs. Ruby had just finished planting her north flower bed and was planning on doing the big bed in the back on Saturday and putting the finishing touches on the east bed on Monday. She was walking around to get a look at the few last minute touches that she needed to do to that bed when she tripped over a roller skate that one of the neighborhood kids had left lying in the garden path. Mrs. Ruby grasped at the air and tried to catch hold on to some of the young saplings she had recently planted on the garden path, all to no avail. Down she went. (Woof!)

     She awoke to sirens screaming and people in white peering over her. Mrs. Ruby realized that she was in the emergency room at the hospital in Junction Town. She knew that because the hospital in Scuttersfield, her hometown, did not have the pretty little nurse trainees in the pink and white striped uniforms.  It was too small.  Ruby remembered that the last thing she saw was the broken sapling that came away in her hand when she tried to stop herself from falling when she tripped over the skate.

     “Oh well”, she thought. “Time to give this cot to someone who really needs it.”  Having said that to herself, Mrs. Ruby went to vault up off of the cot. She screamed with pain and fell back limp in a dead faint. What she did not realize and didn’t find out until later was that she had a sustained a mild concussion and had broken three rib bones when she tripped over the skate and fell. 

She fell folks, but not to worry, she's okay, basically that is. She is a little bruised, has a mild concussion that the doctors want to watch and has three broken ribs, but as she is often fond of saying, "One tide does not a beach wash out."  Now spiritually, Mrs. Ruby is not faring as well. She keeps wondering why her world has turned upside down and nobody "up there" is listening to her anymore. She is wondering what she has done to make all of this happen to her. 

Folks, have you ever felt like Mrs. Ruby is feeling right now? How did you handle your situation?

...Well, at any rate, she has her son Matt and me. We are ever by her side, but that does not seem to be enough for her. She is reaching for something deeper. She has become listless and has developed a defeatist attitude. That bothers me because, if you knew Mrs. Ruby, you would know that giving up just does not "cut the mustard", according to her that is. Why, she is the one who, by talking about the benefits of prayer, brought me back from the brink of despair!

She taught me that in this life, prayer allows us to "shed our fears and place our problems, which to us sometimes seem insurmountable, into the hands of SOMEONE more capable of handling them than we are."

Will keep you posted on her struggle with her faith. In the meantime, if you know a "Mrs. Ruby" in your life; pray for her and extend whatever kindnesses it is in your power to bestow. You could be setting the backdrop for your own future; you just never know, reader you just never know.

Here is a poem that I wrote to all of the Mrs. Ruby’s of the world:

Don’t Despair

No matter what you are going through

Begin your day with prayer and peace of mind

Is what you will find.

HE will take the load from your heart

That you thought you could not bear

And leave tranquility resting there.

HE is the MASTER of all things

Tangible, abstract and surreal

Lean on him, dear lady and

Experience the peace that only HE

Can make you feel.

 Join me tomorrow in the sad little lady's walk through a waning faith. Wonder does she really have to move; will something happen at the last minute so that she can stay in her home? Will her ribs heal? Will she ever be happy again? Can't somebody do something? I wonder, wonder, wonder. Read in tomorrow and see if any of these questions are answered.

Until then, be blessed. 

Doing What I Can, While I Can
Alma Jones

Aside: If you did not begin your day with prayer (BYDWP), get one in now. HE is ever listening and carrying out plans!