They were different in many ways. One was ninety, the other not yet fifty. One had a big family—children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren—who loved to get together for vacations and holidays and whatever special occasions they invented. The other had no close family; both parents were deceased and two brothers, estranged (from each other and her). She never married, never gave birth to children, but she loved little ones, and they loved her. One had material wealth, including a gorgeous home on the beach. The other had little wealth and lived all her adult life in a rented apartment.
But if you knew both of them, as I did, you knew they were much more alike than different. They were both so young at heart that chronological age seemed irrelevant. Both enjoved the love of their chosen family, the host of friends and admirers who recognized their beauty and wit and spiritual depth and longed to be near them.
Each had discriminating taste, a style of her own, that showed up in her appearance and in the beautiful way she decorated her surroundings. Both loved flowers and had a reputation for getting things to grow and blossom—a metaphor perhaps. They could bring out the beauty in people, too. Ask me. Ask Hugh. Ask others. Ask about their generosity, too, but be prepared to listen for a long time.
Both were also disciplined, practical, and immaculate—on time and prepared for any scheduled event and just about any unscheduled event, including that of April 20, 1997, when in different places under different circumstances, at about the same hour, each woman left earth behind for the indescribable presence of her Maker and Savior.
Please pray that I, along with all who knew Blanche Strahan and Roberta Loutsenhizer, will learn everything God wants us to learn from their lives and, now, also from their deaths. One verse of Scripture keeps coming to mind. It’s Psalm 90: 12, Moses’s prayer: "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." I’m making those pronouns first person singular.
For you who did not know them, Blanche was a member of Hugh’s and my Church and Sunday school class called "Paradoxes," an early RTB booster, and hostess of our planning retreats as well as of Paradoxes beach parties (along with her daughter and son-in-law, Carole and Bud Wunderly). Roberta we met on church visitation. She, too, became a friend, a Sunday class member, founder of tbe church’s Athletes in Ministry outreach, and eventually served as RTB’s first fulltime employee. She managed the ministry from its inception through its early years and laid a solid foundation for subsequent growth.
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Facts & Faith, Second Quarter 1997 Issue