Long Life, Riches and Honor

Since my wife is on a shopping trip this weekend with a bunch of ladies and having a large time I’m sure, I drove over to Reynolds this morning. I had a large time myself visiting with a very familiar little bitty lady.


The good Lord willing, Jessie Mae King will turn 100 in about four months. She has been a major part of my life from the moment I was born into the world.

She began working for my mom and dad in 1942. My siblings and I spent an awful lot of time with Jessie Mae King as we grew up. And years later my children spent an awful lot of time with the same lady.

Our lives have taken us in many different directions.

But we have never forgotten this special lady.

She spoiled us in so many ways.

Daddy always said if something happened to Mama he would marry her.

Lord have mercy she could cook. It just never got any better than sitting at a table with Jessie’s fried chicken, rice and gravy, butter beans, fresh peas, ho-cake cornbread and sweet tea. Still today when I eat a piece of fried chicken I compare it to Jessie’s.

And none compares to it.

We never had to worry about who our babysitter would be if daddy and mama were going somewhere. It would always be Jessie. Those nights sitting at home with Jessie when our parents were gone were some of the fondest memories I have in life. We talked about everything under the sun.

And I learned more than I could ever imagine I was learning.

I had to get older before I began to understand the wisdom of this lady. She never had much knowledge and she surely didn’t have much education, but there is a huge difference between knowledge and wisdom.

I know a lot of smart, educated and seemingly successful people who are fools. I also know a lot of seemingly successful people who look down on people who are not as educated and those who don’t have much materially.

My lifelong relationship with Jessie Mae King taught me the insanity of such thinking.

Trust me, it doesn’t matter how much money or things we have in this life. We cannot take one dime with us when we leave here. I have never seen a hearse pulling a U Haul trailer. And most of the fine suits are split in the back when they lay you in the casket.

You hang around a funeral home most of your life and you figure out the importance of material things.

I will also always remember Jessie's childlike faith. We try to figure things out and if we can qualify it and quantify it, we believe.

Jessie just believed.

I’ll never forget when our David was a little boy and was very sick. Kathy and I were young parents and we were beginning to get nervous. We just couldn’t get the high fever to break and we were just about to take him to the emergency room.

I looked in the bedroom and saw Jessie kneeling beside his bed. She didn’t use an extravagant prayer or flowery words. I stood at the door and watched and listened. Her prayer was simple:

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” she repeated about ten times very quietly.

In a few minutes she walked out of the room and I walked to the bed and put my hand on David’s head and immediately felt the sweat.

The fever had broken.

She just believed and her childlike faith had a lot to do with all of us believing.

Today as I sat and visited with Jessie I thought about her remarkable but simple life. I also thought about a verse in the third chapter of Proverbs.

Long life is in her right hand and in her left hand are riches and honor.

She has achieved all three.

And I believe God continues to let her live to help fools like me.