Thursday, February 26, 2015

We've Lost Eleanor



“We’ve lost Eleanor.” Those were the last words Robin and I expected to hear as we raced into the emergency waiting room at Kennestone Hospital Tuesday morning.  “We’ve lost Eleanor”. Three words… inestimable devastation.

And so we have spent the last two days trying to grapple with what that looks like, not only for the ministry, but for us who have worked so closely with her for the last fourteen years. How do we take the next step without her wisdom?  How do we make the next decision without her input?  How do we pray without her confidence? How do we press on without her cheering us on? How to we come to grips with the great hole that has been left in our hearts?

Those are all good questions. I have cried innumerable tears, have asked a thousand questions and have held onto friends who have cried right along with me. We have lost Eleanor.

 For those who are not intimately acquainted with the ministry, you may wonder just who Eleanor  Lewis is. I will try to shine some light on how she impacted the ministry and how valuable she was to it and to all of us who are associated with it.

Eleanor was one of the teachers at Big Dream Ministries, Inc. She taught eighteen books of the Bible in The Amazing Collection. She taught two sections of Invincible Love/Invisible War and she taught four sections of Be Amazing.  Eleanor was a born teacher.  Soon after she came to Christ in 1968 God began to prepare her for that role.  She loved to study and learn and grow. She had a passion for teaching people God’s Word in a way they could understand and relate to it. Her lessons were well thought out, well organized and every word was shaped for the purpose of helping people grow closer to Christ.

Eleanor was not only one of the founding partners at BDM but also a board member serving as treasurer.  She and I shared a great partnership.  I am the big picture person,  but  she handled many of the details. Eight month ago we decided to have the DVDs transcribed so that others could take the lessons and teach them without using the DVDs. Once that was done we began to work on reshaping the “lectures” into readable teachings. As we got started on this project I found that I absolutely hated doing it. Why? There were way too many details. El asked if she could do them all because she LOVED doing it. So for the past eight months she has worked tirelessly reshaping every lecture. We would meet once a week for about four hours to go over the big picture of the lessons…and that was my small part. 

She had an incredible focus on Heaven and the Kingdom of God.  She would often remind us that life was short, time was flying and Jesus could come back at any minute. It kept us motivated to continue to press on toward the goal.

Eleanor prayed. She didn’t just say she would pray for you…she would take up the cause  and do it! Sometimes during our prayer time together she would have to stop to compose herself…she would take on the suffering of those we were praying for and the tears would start to come.  She had a sense that Jesus was “right here” and we could at any moment talk to Him…and she did.

And so we “have lost Eleanor”. On Tuesday Morning, February 24, 2015, she stepped from a peaceful sleep into heaven and the presence if her Lord, Savior and her true Love. We had prayed we would live until we died... that we would live for Christ serving Him passionately until our last breath. Eleanor Lewis did that with excellence.

As I have reflected on those three words “we have lost Eleanor” I have come to understand that we have not, we have not lost Eleanor. We know exactly where she is. We know Who she is with and we know what she is doing and it is all glorious. No, we have not lost Eleanor…she has simply moved to a better neighborhood.