A PURE HEART

The newspaper reports that a man with child pornography creatively chose an autism defense.  Huh?  He's saying his autism made him do it?  Now THERE are some bodacious fig leaves.  Apparently his defense worked because our whomper-jawed justice system gave the man a suspended sentence.  Man's justice has spoken, but there is another justice system coming that understands a pure heart.

Just what would that pure heart look like?  I think of my sweet grandmother, Bessie Clough.  "Miss Bessie" was born and lived her whole life in Des Arc, a tiny Arkansas town beside the White River.  In it's heyday, Des Arc numbered  2,000 folks; now the number is pushing 1,600.


"Over the river and through the woods" were the GPS coordinates for getting to our Grandmother's house.  My younger brother Tim and I always dreaded going over Des Arc's famous swinging suspension bridge (1940-1970).  It was unsettling to meet another vehicle and sway with that old bridge.  
Born in 1889, my grandmother was the mother of three surviving children.  She never owned a car and walked everywhere she went.  She graduated from high school at 16 and was teaching school at 21.  The most amazing thing about her was that she NEVER said a bad word about anyone.  I actively (and perversely) tried her on this "never a bad word" trait.  Miss Bessie had a widowed sister-in-law who lived next door that could be...well...irritating.  The minute our car pulled up in front of Grandmother's, we would time Aunt Annie and place bets on how long it would take her to arrive.  Grandmother always just said "well, she's lonesome".  See what I mean?

If you know the personality types, Grandmother was phlegmatic.  Ask a phlegmatic if they would rather have coffee or tea, and they answer "whatever you have the most of".  It wasn't that she didn't have opinions or preferences.  She just didn't want to be a bother and most things WERE all right with her.  She had two daughters who lovingly served as her managers.  My mother Sue and her sister Margaret were 17 months apart in age and they pretty much double-teamed Grandmother.  They relieved her of her favorite tattered chenille robe.  They monitored her underwear drawer, removing worn britches and adding "good" underwear.  They might bring her new furniture and rearrange her living room.  She just let them...and then after they left, she moved it back.

Grandmother's last name was "Clough" and that rhymes with "rough" and "tough".  Bessie wasn't the least bit rough, but she WAS tough in the way a yellow crocus survives a cold March wind.  She weathered life circumstances that would have crushed a lesser faith.

Ransom Clough was Bessie's husband.  He crossed the White River in a boat one day to hunt squirrels in the bottoms on the other side.  On the way back, his boat capsized and his hip boots filled up and he was seen to call out for help before he went under water.

Grandmother waited as the men in town searched for her husband and it wasn't until the next morning that the river gave up his body.  Bessie later expressed her appreciation in the White River Journal for the townspeople's outpouring of love.  She wrote "...especially to those who worked so faithfully and so untiringly during the long hours of that never-to-be-forgotten night and day of our Gethsemane, while we prayed and waited...we truly thank you."

Now a 42 year-old widow with three children, Bessie concluded by saying..."I will bow humbly to the One who does all things well".  This sweet woman's acceptance of God's sovereignty set the trust bar for me.

 Life can be bumpy and Grandmother had already experienced the loss of one child to whooping cough and had made room for her blind mother to live with them.  But times got really hard in 1932 because she lost Ransom AND her Mama within months.

With her children to support, Miss Bessie went back to teaching school.  When she retired, she had taught the second grade for 32 years in the same room.  All those years she also taught Sunday School at her church.  So if you were from Des Arc, my grandmother probably taught you something.






This is a picture of the Prairie County courthouse, built in Des Arc in 1912.  Out behind this wonderful old building is the jail where Grandmother once was summoned.  One of her former students was a guest of the county and had asked to see his second grade teacher.

Each year Miss Bessie required her class to memorize a poem about the Ten Commandments.  As Grandmother visited with this man in jail, tears ran down his face as he recited the poem and said "Mrs. Clough, I sure wish I had paid better attention to what you taught us."

No gods before Me shalt thou own; 

Place not an idol on My throne

Speak not God's name in careless way;

Remember, keep God's holy day

Honor and heed thy parent's will;

Bear this in mind, thou shalt not kill
In all thy words and ways be clean,
For all things by God are seen.

Tell not a lie or act untrue,

And want no more than God gives you.

Tim and I had cousins named Rick and Chris who were about our age.  We all were carted to Des Arc for each holiday.  As teens, we thought it was a boring place with its one teeny-weeny Dairy Bar.  But when we were little, Grandmother spiced things up by paying us a penny for each bumble bee we swatted out on her honeysuckle vines.  That kept us busy and motivated, and the pace was fast for those three boys.  Each Christmas we had the same thing under the tree.  Bessie sat and picked out pecans during the fall, and we got a quart jar of pecan halves with a five dollar bill on top.  We were happy.  

A widowed schoolteacher with three children needed to watch her pennies.  So when Miss Bessie's firstborn son was 18, he left home to lighten her load and to be able to earn money to send back home.  My uncle went far from home in more than one sense.  He lived in Colorado as a bartender, imprisoned in an addiction.  Grandmother never seemed bitter about "losing" that son although I know it broke her heart.  His visits were few, but she always received him warmly.  And again, I never heard her say a critical word about her son.

When I see Grandmother, I want to ask her why she never remarried.  I can remember Sue and Margaret teasing their Mama about a tall man who was sweet on Bessie for a long time.  He was a gentle man who for years faithfully gave Grandmother a ride to church.  When I asked Mother about why Miss Bessie remained single, Mother sheepishly replied "because Margaret and I really didn't want her to marry".  Mother was embarrassed about that, but she and her sister had to get older to realize the full impact on their mother after they left home and Grandmother was all alone.  Sometimes you just have to live life to understand things.





Miss Bessie lived to be 86 and ovarian cancer was her final foe.  My regret was that when Grandmother needed spiritual encouragement, I did not know Christ and I had nothing to offer.  One night as she faced cancer surgery the next morning, I went into her room to kiss her goodnight.  Uncharacteristically, Miss Bessie confessed "I'm afraid!" and big tears came to her eyes.  I was embarrassed to not know what to say.  Probably I just meaninglessly said "oh, it'll be OK, Grandmother".  How I wish I had given her a Scripture or reminded her of a way that the Lord had supported me.  That would have pointed her upward and helped to calm her spirit.


From my vantage point, Bessie Clough lived on history's timeline when it seemed easier to maintain a pure heart.  Des Arc was like Mayberry!   I would venture a guess that she never was tempted by pornography and she wouldn't have the slightest idea what a snuff movie or a copycat murder was.  How could she begin to conceive of what drugs would free people to do?  Or in her worst nightmare, could she imagine that Islamofascists would be lopping off people's heads in their modern-day quest to take over the world?


The knowledge of evil takes up valuable space in a mind.  It takes away room for wholesome, edifying thoughts.  The knowledge of evil puts disobedience on a low, convenient shelf.  Wish Eve had passed on that garden Fuji.  


Of course, Miss Bessie didn't get her ticket to heaven because she was a sweet lady who thought good thoughts.  Everyone sins, and even the sin of a sheltered second grade school teacher would have separated her from God.  Grandmother's pure heart came when she said YES to Christ and God viewed her heart as covered.  


Matthew 5.8 says there's a reward for the pure in heart...they will see God.  I get a lot of comfort in thinking about Miss Bessie enjoying the Lord's presence now.  For all those years, He was her Savior and she served Him faithfully and pointed others to Him.  For her forty-four years as a widow, He was her Husband and she leaned back into His ability to protect her.  When she drew her last breath, she got to see His face.  


Now Grandmother is in my "cloud of witnesses" who encourage my walk.  I thank the Lord for the way He still uses her example of a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.