For the longest time, I didn’t know my great-grandmother’s name. When I greeted her, I called her “Grammaw Ree.” It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I finally asked my father what her name was. Turns out, I had fudged the pronunciation for the last several years, though in a way barely discernible: her name was Marie. Everyone else was calling her “Gran Marie.” Oops.

Gran Marie, or Marie Spainhower, lived into her late 90’s and was sharp as a tack till the day she died. Every night she prayed and listed the names of all her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren (in birth order, I might add!).

I remember sharing a room with her one night and she sang hymns to herself till she slept; song after song after song, a limitless memory of music. With my grandmother’s help, she even wrote out some of her memoirs. Some of the stories were stirring, some were tragic, most suffused with love and faithfulness.

What I remember most about Gran Marie was what happened when she went into the nursing facility. Gran Marie was blind near the end of her life and lived at my grandparents’ home. For many years, my grandparents faithfully cared for her with the help of home health services.

My grandparents were committed to taking care of her for as long as possible, but Gran Marie insisted upon going into the care facility against their wishes. Transporting her around was a bit difficult because of how frail she was and because of her need for a wheelchair.

Because of that, she missed out on seeing her friends and she missed going to church services. From what I remember of her memoirs, I’m sure she remembered her younger days of raising livestock and chasing children and disliked even the perception of being a burden upon anyone else.

So, despite my grandparent’s protests, despite her doctor’s objections, Gran Marie went to the Church of Christ nursing home. And get this — she asked for a roommate. No private room for her!

Her reason? She hoped that God would send her someone who needed to be ministered to.

Gran Marie was blind, Gran Marie only got around with the help of a wheelchair and she wanted to continue to minister to others. I was in seminary at this point and my great-grandma’s servant heart humbled me.

She got her wish. Her roommate was suffering from what seemed to be dementia and she would become very agitated at night. Whenever this happened, Gran Marie would slide herself out of bed, into her wheelchair and roll over to her roommate’s side. She would pat her hand and sing to her until she subsided. Then Gran Marie would head back to bed.

Thinking about that scene brings me to tears . . . makes me hope that I can one day be as loving and graceful as she was.

Gran Marie loved deeply, loved freely and served all people with an openness of spirit that welled up from her deep faith in God. No matter her age, no matter her bodily ability, she heard the cries of the “least of these” and acted with compassion.

She was and is one of the saints of God and I am privileged to have her in my cloud of witnesses.

Rev. Elizabeth Grasham is the Senior Minister at Central Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Galveston Island, TX. She is the mother of Gareth (4), an avid geek, and a life-long book-lover. Elizabeth tweets about all the bizarre children’s tv shows she has to watch and makes some delicious homemade pop-tarts.

I don’t have any memory of being given the bag. It’s a big, flat plastic bag from someone’s craft-store shopping trip. It must, at some point, have come from my grandmother’s house. She had a basement full of this kind of thing: ancient magazines and books, antique papers crumbling into dust. When I visited her each summer I’d come home with souvenirs that I dug up from the boxes of stuff she’d forgotten she had.

There’s no telling how old I was when I scored this particular haul, but it was in my possession by early 1998 when I was filling out my seminary application and writing admissions essays. I had a journalism degree and a few years of marriage under my belt; my husband was finishing his seminary education and I was wondering whether I could (or should) pursue the lifelong sense of call I’d had.

I remember spilling out the contents of the bag, an inch-deep stack of scrapbook pages, dismembered from whatever album covers once contained them. Each oversized page was adhered front and back with black and white photographs, newspaper clippings, brochures and bulletins. Between the pages were layered diplomas and certificates from the old-school Baptist training unions, Sunday School Board, and WMU programming.

And a continuing-education completion certificate from a night-school program held at Central Baptist Theological Seminary–the school to which I was about to apply as an MDiv student.

 I never knew my great-grandmother, and never knew anything about her until I explored that stack of pages. Turns out she was a journalist; her byline appears on many of those newsclippings and “local interest” snippets. She was a church leader, attending and reporting on many women’s ministry meetings. She was a student, over and over again, as witnessed by the many different certificates she earned. Though “back in the day” most of her her bylines and accolades were listed by her husband’s name, I think of her not as “Mrs. Howard” but as, simply, Stella.

 I have tremendous memories of my grandmothers and my great-aunts and their dedication to God, to the church, and to learning. But Stella caught my imagination.

Though not an imaginary person, she can only be an imagined saint in my story. I have few actual pictures of her (a demure debutante) and an image in my head shaped by the tales I’ve heard (a roving husband?) and the collection of memorabilia she saved (a writer, a learner, a leader). I can only imagine where she struggled, how she celebrated, whether she ever felt that she’d fulfilled her calling.

Did she chafe at being recognized as “Mrs. Howard”? Did she dream of setting off on her own missionary journey? Did she have a room of her own, a place to write, a Remington typewriter and spools of ink ready and waiting? Did she discover herself in the intersection of wifehood, motherhood, and ministry, or was she constantly weighing, balancing, wondering, dreaming, stretching, resting–the way I do? Did she wonder whether she was leaving a worthy inheritance to her daughters, granddaughters, great-granddaughters?

 Did she wonder whether the God she served and the church she loved might ever call one of her great-granddaughters to stand at a pulpit and proclaim good news?

 I can only imagine.

Nicole Finkelstein-Blair became a U.S. Navy spouse in 2000, graduated from Central Baptist Theological Seminary and was ordained in 2001, and became “Mom!” in 2004. She finds ministry wherever the military and motherhood lead: in five states and two countries (so far), as a parishioner and a pulpit-supplier, as a sometime blogger and devotional writer, and at countless dinner tables and bedtimes. She’s enjoying now… and looking forward to what’s next.

For the past six years, I have been researching the life and ministry of Rev. Dr. Prathia Hall (1940-2002), a civil rights activist, Baptist preacher, and womanist scholar. Little did I know at the beginning of this journey that Prathia would become a spiritual mother to me, a “shero” who continues to inspire me about the real meaning of life and faith.

Prathia was born in Philadelphia and grew up helping with her father’s social gospel oriented church ministry. In high school and college, she became involved with Fellowship House, a Philadelphia ecumenical social justice organization, where she studied the philosophy of nonviolence.

In 1962, Hall joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Southwest Georgia and Alabama, canvassing door to door to register voters and teaching in freedom schools, educational programs to help potential voters pass registration tests. She was arrested many times in Georgia and Alabama, and she suffered a minor gunshot wound in Georgia in September, 1962. She resigned from SNCC in 1966 when the organization transitioned away from nonviolence, though she described her time in the movement as the best education she ever received.

Prathia became one of the first African American Baptist women ordained by the American Baptist Churches of the U.S.A. (1977), was the first woman accepted into the Baptist Minister Conference of Philadelphia and Vicinity (1982), completed her M.Div. and Ph.D. (1997) degrees at Princeton Theological Seminary, and became a well-respected professor of Christian ethics, womanist theology, and African American religious history at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio and Boston University.

In 1997, Ebony magazine named her first in its list of “15 Greatest Black Women Preachers,” and she was the only woman considered for its list of “10 Greatest Black Preachers,” ultimately placing eleventh. She pastored Mt. Sharon Baptist Church in Philadelphia, her father’s church, for nearly a quarter century.

She mentored over two hundred aspiring African American clergywomen, and there is a prominent blog for young African American clergywomen named “Prathia’s Daughters.” She remained active in the Progressive National Baptist Convention, the American Baptist Churches USA, the New York Board of Education, the Association of Black Seminarians, and domestic and international advocacy for liberation and equality of men and women of all ethnicities.

After a long battle with cancer, Prathia died in 2002.

Though she led an amazing life and accomplished great things, Prathia was a modest woman. She worked tirelessly for justice. And not in front of the camera like some of her colleagues, but among the people. She wasn’t afraid to be with the people. She spent hours on the front porch listening to stories, building trust, and walking alongside people. She valued every person, not just those with formal credentials. She empowered people to realize their giftedness and calling in spite of obstacles, and her faith inspired others to find their own.

As I read Prathia’s sermons, I was moved by the power of her preaching, by the way she transformed her suffering into prophetic proclamation. She lost her father in a car accident in 1960, survived four years of police brutality and constant threat of harm during the movement, earned an Ivy League graduate education as a single mother while teaching and preaching, endured painful injuries from two car accidents, and lost her brother and her daughter under tragic circumstances.

Rather than let these difficulties silence her, she allowed her own theological journey to radiate through her preaching. She articulated the deep emotions of these experiences in her preaching in a way that welcomed all who had suffered to find refuge in the presence of God and reminded them that God’s justice will always prevail over evil. She used to say that she had to preach, had to write, had to let it out to keep from being consumed by anger. And by anyone’s standards, she had righteous cause for anger.

Instead, she turned ashes into beautiful breaths of life.

I found myself, and still find myself, being formed by her words, being challenged to speak truth to power and to stand in solidarity with the oppressed. Her courage to cut through the excuses given for delayed progress of gender equality in Baptist ministry leadership inspired me to follow my calling in spite of those who say that because of my gender I must be mistaken about God’s call. She taught me to not feel selfish or divisive for wanting opportunity to preach, but to see this as obedience to God’s call for my life.

When I was a single mother trying to finish my PhD, her words reminded me why I must keep going no matter how difficult the journey. When I was finally brave enough to name my suffering and speak truth to power against those who had oppressed and abused me, and when my oppressors attacked me for doing so, Prathia’s words surrounded me, lifted me up, and breathed new life into me.

I wish I could have met Prathia, my single most profound preaching mentor. I am blessed to know many people who knew her and who have shared her spark of life with me. I will never stop sharing that spark with others. I will forever cling to her wisdom, to her heroic bravery in the movement, to her unshakeable conviction that the God who calls us will see us through.

And as Prathia reminded us, “We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes….”

Rev. Dr. Courtney Pace Lyons is mother to Stanley and works at Baylor University, where she studied Prathia Hall and earned her PhD.

*Portions of this blog post were taken Courtney Pace Lyons, “Prathia Hall,” African American National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

I first met Missy in 2010. We were both attending a Baptist Women in Ministry of Georgia gathering. At lunch that day, Missy was presented with the Sara Owen Etheridge Scholarship. During the presentation, the BWIM of Georgia president briefly shared about Missy’s work with refugee women and about her dream to make that her life work. The story touched my heart in ways I can’t even explain, and when the lunch was over, I made my way over to Missy and said, “I need to give you a hug.” And so our friendship began—with a hug.

Over the next few years, we shared a good number of hugs. Missy was a student at McAfee School of Theology, and my office is on the McAfee campus. She often made her way to my office, and we sat and talked. During those years, she began her work in Uganda—living there for a summer and then for a semester. Traveling as often as she could to the country that had captured her heart, to minister with and to the refugee women with whom she had fallen in love.

When Missy was back in Georgia, she always returned to my office, teaching me about the geopolitical systems that had such a devastating impact on women and children, telling me heartbreaking stories about the women she had grown to love there.
In the summer of 2012, Missy was commissioned to serve in Uganda as field personnel with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Her passion had officially become her life’s work.

On December 31, I attended her ordination service, a beautiful, simple service. Near the end of the service, I made my way to the front to participate in the laying on of hands, but when my turn came, I instead wrap my arms around Missy, hugging her close to me and offering her a few words of blessing.

Missy spent the early months of 2013 traveling and raising funds for her new ministry role. I saw her occasionally during those busy days, thankful that she made the time to visit with me. A few weeks before she was scheduled to leave for Uganda she stopped by to see me. Missy walked into my office wearing a lovely black coat. My first words to her were, “Oh, Missy, tell me where you got your coat. I have been looking for a black coat and haven’t been able to find one that I like.” And Missy replied, “When I leave for Uganda, I will give you my coat. I won’t need a coat there.”

A few weeks later, on her last days in the states, Missy came by for one last visit, one last hug—and she brought me her black coat.

We Atlanta folks had an unusually harsh winter this past year—we lived through Snowocalypse in January 2014 and experienced much cooler temperatures than is normal into April. All winter long, I took my “new” black coat out of the closet and put it on before heading out the door. And every single time that I slipped my arms into that coat and pulled it around me, I thought of Missy. I felt her presence. I imagined her arms around me, hugging me close.

Missy’s black coat was a gift, and not a just a gift of warm clothing. That coat is for me a symbol of love and the mysterious ways in which God connects us with each other. It is a reminder of grace and friendship. It is a reminder that no matter how far away Missy is—she is still close in my heart.

Rev. Dr. Pam Durso is executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry, Atlanta, Georgia. She just celebrated her five year anniversary in that role. Congratulations, Pam!

Note: This post originally appeared on the Baptist Women in Ministry blog at http://www.bwim.info.