A Tribute to Virtuous Women

In this year, 2012, we celebrate my grandmother’s 94 years of life. Through this means, I want to pay tribute to all those dear elderly ladies, virtuous women, exemplary daughters of the Most High God

; especially my dearly beloved maternal grandmother, Emilia.

I will share with you a little of her legacy of faith and obedience, her testimony of an exemplary life, and her total and unconditional devotion to God and her loved ones. Over the years, many testimonies have been written about women of God who, through their lives, have modeled for the world the infinite love of our God and Father. Therefore, I want to contribute one more account to history: that of an exemplary woman who sowed in many hearts the seed of God’s incomparable love.

My grandmother’s life and testimony will remain etched into the fibers of my heart as the finest example of Christian living in my time. It was through her that I came to know my Heavenly Father and have an intimate and personal relationship with Him.

Her life was filled with sacrifices, struggles, trials, and difficulties—as is the case for many of us—but she always knew how to conduct herself with faith and total devotion to God, demonstrating that amid each of them God would display His love and grace, bringing her through victoriously and confirming to the world “that all things work together for good to those who love God (Romans 8:28).

One of the many difficult trials my grandmother experienced, which had repercussions for many years and affected many members of our family, was this: although hers was a Christian marriage, the enemy enticed her husband (my grandfather) to leave in search of an affair with another woman, thereby destroying their home and leaving her with four teenage children. As the years passed, my grandmother always remained faithful to her God. Devoting herself to her children, she never remarried, remaining alone with the memories of her first boyfriend, her husband, and the only man with whom she had a relationship in her entire life.

From the very beginning, my grandmother forgave my grandfather and his new partner. I remember with great nostalgia that, when I was a child, I would see my grandfather and his partner visit my grandmother’s house, and she would receive them quite naturally and full of mercy, and bid them farewell with a “God bless you.” I even remember sometimes hearing my grandmother pray for their salvation. Although I did not understand it at the time and even suffered when I saw that scene, those experiences were what formed within me the image of a forgiving God.

My grandmother always knew how to model the values taught in the Bible. Through her conduct and testimony, she earned the respect and admiration of her community, whose members would stop to listen to her advice and would even seek her out to intercede for them in prayer. She was the instrument the Lord used to bring the generations after her to Him.

Today my grandmother is a very elderly woman, her body tired and weakened by the years and by life; but even now, with her trembling, feeble voice, she sings to God those hymns that in the past were her confessions of faith for proclaiming victory in her life.

I praise and glorify my God for the great privilege of having given me, in my grandmother, an extraordinarily powerful example of love and devotion to Him. In prayer, I ask Him to bless her and for His grace to continue accompanying her for the rest of her days. May the Lord also bless all those dear elderly ladies who have left their loved ones a legacy of teachings about the love and power of God.