The 1 Corinthians 4 Woman

Mrs. Kershaw was an elderly woman, quite deaf, lumpy, uneducated, not terribly talented, probably not what any of us would call successful in an outward sense. She was a "helper" to Mrs. Katherine Howard, helping to run a household that included six children. The second oldest of the Howard children, a daughter, grew up to be something of a well-known author. This is what Elisabeth Elliot wrote of the dearly loved woman:

If ever a woman accepted the demands of her own life with simplicity and grace, it was she. It was a positive and active acceptance of the given. Words which have taken hold of our minds today like some noxious fungus--hassle, frustration, hang-up, put-down--were never in Mrs. Kershaw's vocabulary, nor could they have been. She wasn't interested in herself. She had nothing to say about herself or her own feelings. She lived for us.

I think of the contrasts Paul speaks about in 1 Corinthians 4. It is illuminating to set them in two lists and read straight down one list, then read down the other and ask oneself which list describes his or her own life.

handicapped       never frustrated
puzzled                 never in despair
persecuted           never have to stand it alone
knocked down    never knocked out

For Paul to have said that--Paul, who had suffered the loss of all things, ought to shake up our categories of what is worth having. Mrs. Kershaw would have said the same. I doubt that it ever occurred to her that she had been deprived of anything in her life that really mattered. The Lord had made His face to shine upon her and had given her peace, and she brought that shine and that peace to our house every day.
Elisabeth Elliot, Love Has a Price Tag (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2005), 167-168.

I need to be reminded of women like Mrs. Kershaw, invaluable, lovely, homely Mrs. Kershaw. Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. (Prov. 31:30)