Community

Thoughts from Zabelle Huss:

I recently sang at a retirement tribute to Dotty Larson who has led Community Bible Study in Santa Monica for 49 years. I wrote personalized words to “Thanks for the Memories,” only to find out, after I’d agreed to sing, that I’d be singing for Marty Goetz who would be performing, too! All went so well, thanks to the prayers of so many of my friends in the audience.

I tell you this because something occurred to me as I sat in the second pew and watched many women get up to speak or perform. I looked at these women and, not for the first time, it struck me; “where else does one find such truly good women of such fine character, no gossip I’ve ever heard (in the 10 years I lead at CBS), a true love for each other, caring, concerned, prayer warriors for anyone who needs it?”

Then I thought about our wonderful WCF Retreat a couple of weeks ago and how I’d had the same feeling there. We understand each other, we share life issues together, we know our concerns are taken seriously and prayed for by our Christian friends.


Women who are not Christian also build each other up with caring, helping with advice, and that’s a wonderful thing. The thing that feels almost palpably missing is the unity in Christ.

When we know scripture and feel convicted by it, when we know the Holy Spirit is with us, when we are relying on verses Christian women have profited from for generations, we have a unity that I believe can’t be surpassed.

I recently had a disappointment in a job situation. A few weeks later, I got an email from a blogger friend named “Curt” asking how I was and I briefly described what had happened. When I responded, I typed in “Curt…” and without looking at the address the computer proceeded to finish for me, I sent it off only to learn the “computer” had a plan of its own! A day or two later, in came an email from a lovely CBS friend, Helen Curtis, who’d moved to Oklahoma and with whom I’d lost touch. She wrote “I am sure this email wasn’t meant for me, but I couldn’t help reading it and wanted to share with you
two quotes. One is ‘When you’re walking with the Lord, change is always in your favor.’ I couldn’t imagine anything I needed to hear more than that and I praised God for this “accident” in emails when I realized what had happened. Not a ‘coincidence,’ but what I have always called a “god-incident.”

Another quote she included was ‘Don’t ever doubt in the dark what God showed you in the light.”’ I had been so happy in that job and felt God was with me and for me and then, suddenly, things were different. Had God left me? Part of me thought so! But, of course, He never leaves us and it felt so good to have a Christian sister remind me that God is, and always will be, the SAME LOVING GOD.

Only a Christian friend could have written these quotes to me. These are the things Christian women can and do for each other. I give ‘Thanks for the Memories’ of situations like this and for the special blessings of a unity and support I believe only Christian women can share. Hug a Christian friend especially hard next time you see her. She is so worth it!