Kathy Duke and her husband, John, are long-standing members of Westminster, Colo., RPC. I’ve known Kathy my whole life, and I’ve experienced her (and John’s) warm hospitality both at their church and in their home. When we sat down together at the Midwest Presbytery family camp, she told me about the first time she had attended that camp (then held at Covenant Heights) as a new believer in 1970. She said she met so many mature Christians, and she couldn’t wait to be like them in 25 years. I can tell you that, over 50 years later, the Lord has certainly worked in her to be a blessing and example to younger Christians.

Kathy grew up in a small town in Rhode Island with a less-than-functional family. Her parents were divorced when she was six, and her father (who was 19 years older than her mother) died when she was eight. With six daughters to provide for and only an eighth-grade education, her mother was often away, working as a cook for about $80 a week. They boarded tenants at their house who were sometimes violent and even abusive.

She and her sisters generally fended for themselves—cooking dinner, packing lunches, and getting themselves to school. Kathy recounted a story of them being alone during a thunderstorm that really scared them. Her sixth-grade sister, who was making dinner, grabbed the bean pot and they all ran down the country road, in the storm, to a neighbor’s house.

Though neither of their parents took them to church, their neighbors helped them get to a nearby American Baptist church on Sundays. Although Kathy did not understand what it meant to have a relationship with God, she believed in Him. Sometimes, if she was afraid at night, she would repeat the Lord’s prayer and find it comforting.

Not wanting to have to struggle the way her mom did, Kathy was highly motivated to do well in school (where she preferred to be anyway), and she did well. Once she left for Mount Union College, she never returned home for any length of time.

Beginnings of New Life

During the summer of 1969, while still in college, Kathy worked for the Methodist Board of Missions in the inner city of Cincinnati, Ohio. There she met her future husband, although neither of them was a Christian. John’s sister also worked for the mission, and she tried to convince Kathy to accept Christ. At first, Kathy hesitated because John thought his sister was a little “over the top.” But later, John became a Christian. After that, Kathy still hesitated because she wanted to become a Christian out of her own conviction, not just follow John.

Eventually, the Spirit worked in her to become a Christian. She remembers having a long conversation with John’s sister one night over Christmas break in John’s family’s home, after which she was ready to accept Christ. John and Kathy were married a year later in December 1971 after she graduated and moved to Denver, Colo., where Pastor Paul McCracken invited them to come to the Westminster RP church plant.

Paul and Frances McCracken were instrumental in Kathy and John’s years as early Christians through their hospitality, discipleship, and prayers. Frances loved and mentored Kathy, who was still struggling to understand the full implications of the gospel (aren’t we all?). Over and over again, Frances would remind Kathy to know and believe the promises of God. She remembers a time when Frances put her arms around her and said, “I just love you like a daughter!” It was that evident love for Kathy that opened up the door for her to speak into Kathy’s life.

Years of Struggle

In those first years at Westminster church, Kathy said that she and John “just grabbed hold of the church.” But, they were not without their heartaches. As someone who had to learn to be independent very early on in life, Kathy struggled with the temptation to control everything. This became especially evident when their children had severe struggles she just couldn’t fix, though she longed to. “I kept saying, ‘Lord, you must not love me because we’ve been praying so hard about this, and it’s so hard, and nothing has helped. Maybe I don’t belong to you.’” Kathy had years of this painful wondering, feeling guilty and unworthy even to the point of believing she shouldn’t take the Lord’s supper at times.

But the Lord helped her to eventually understand that, first of all, He was the one who had to help her children. Second, she saw that God was not going to take away the struggles in their lives just for her sake: “He had something to teach them, just like He had something to teach me.” Even when she came to this realization, it wasn’t easy for Kathy and John to see their children suffering. But they were learning to entrust their children, body and soul, to the Lord.

Years down the road, primarily through the preaching of the Word, Kathy came to really see what the gospel was. She said the teaching was always there, but the Spirit needed to open her eyes to see it.

A Turning Point: Grace

While leading a book study called Does Grace Grow Best in Winter? Kathy asked herself, Do I really understand grace? While she pored over those chapters, what God had done for her began to sink in. She could not earn God’s favor, nor could she lose her salvation. While we were speaking together, Kathy stated, hand on her heart, “You can have an intellectual knowledge, but does it sink down to here?” She realized that grace can be hard—God may be showing you what you need to learn.

Another thread Kathy sees in her life is the importance of abiding in Christ. While assurance of faith does not automatically accompany daily Scripture reading and prayer, it was an important part of Kathy’s growing assurance. Recently, she has been “mentored” by another book: A Vine-Ripened Life. “As an older woman, I’m realizing that I need to look seriously at where I stand with the Lord. To know that I must abide in His Word; know it, believe it, and trust in it in order to bear fruit that benefits the whole body of Christ.” She said, “For too long I have busied myself, like Martha, with serving and not choosing, like Mary, to abide at the feet of Jesus and learn from Him. And, because of that, the fruit of my life has been stunted. God has been growing me in that area.”

In the years since Covenant Heights, Kathy has seen that knowing the Lord is a constantly changing process. We grow when we stop trying to walk on our own and instead abide in Christ. She reflected that she lost many years because of not fully knowing God and His love and forgiveness. Yet, she said, “God promises the impossible. In Joel 2:25, it says, ‘I will restore the years that the locust has eaten.’” As He did for Israel, the Lord deepened Kathy’s communion with Himself to something far greater than anything she had known before.

A More Excellent Way

Kathy reflected that she wishes there were greater intergenerational relationships in the church. Younger people often just “Google it” instead of asking older people for help, leaving them feeling irrelevant (which is far from what God declares about older men and women in the church). But the burden is not just on younger people. For many years, she, too, has been afraid to reach out to younger women for fear that she didn’t have the right answers. Both parties must cultivate that relationship, doing what doesn’t feel easiest in the moment.

As we talked about mentoring relationships, Kathy reminded me that you can’t mentor someone you don’t know. In the early years, she had people in her church who felt free to tell her and John that they were raising their children incorrectly. But it was their dear friends, who now live in Walton, N.Y., who could say anything to them because John and Kathy knew their friends loved them and did not sit in judgment on them. Now, Kathy prays that she might “be used more profitably as a friend and mentor to others, to see needs and come alongside and give back what God has given to me through friends and older saints in my past.”

It was humbling to learn from this dear sister and mother in the faith. To hear from other women of faith, you can listen to the *Oaks of Righteousness podcast. If there are women in your life you would like to see highlighted, please email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).*