Here Comes The Basket Lady

October 8, 2000

"You need to retire while the kids still like you," my husband was at it again.  After 31 years of teaching the little ones in public school, I suppose it was time to retire, but I loved my job. Emmitt had retired earlier and kept urging me.

So I retired. At first we traveled, took up square dancing and had all kinds of time on our hands. The strange thing was, we both felt a void in our lives.

We felt a tinge of selfishness, seeing so many people with so many needs.  About that time our Uncle Steve was beginning to have health problems. He was all alone and we were his only relatives.

At 88, arthritis came creeping upon him, requiring a wheelchair. He wanted to live in his own house as long as he could. Emmitt is helping him do just that. He spends from four to five hours a day seeing after Uncle Steve.

With Emmitt's help, Uncle Steve is doing well and is very happy in his own home.  Now I really felt a void. Emmitt was being blessed by "counting someone else's interest above his own." (Philippians 2:4) But what could I do to bring some hope and sunshine into someone's life? "Lord," I prayed, "Help me find a way to bring hope to a dark world."

The next day I saw this beautiful crocheted basket in a craft store. It had been crocheted with three inch strips of cloth material, with big cheery bows on either side.

"If I could only learn to do that, what a basket of cheer that could be." It could be a basket filled with cookies for shut-ins or a basket filled with toiletries for hospital patients or a basket with a teddy bear sitting inside for a new baby or a sick child.

My mind just raced. "What a wonderful ministry that could be." Besides, doing something for someone else is good therapy.

I rushed to the print store and had 100 cards printed: "Joy Baskets. The Joy of the Lord is your strength. (Nehemiah 8:10.'" I was really stepping out in faith and I didn't even know how to crochet yet!

I struggled with books and directions. My crocheting was a mess.  "You'll never be able to do that," Emmitt said one night while watching TV. "Here, let me show you."

"You mean you knew how all along? Why didn't you tell me?" "I thought you would think I was a sissy!" Thanks to Emmitt's lessons, I now have a "basket ministry." It takes me about three hours to make a basket, and with every one I place prayers inside. I keep an assortment on hand. I never know when I will need to deliver my basket of joy.

My basket ministry has turned into a two-fold blessing. I feel useful once again and I feel I am making the most of my retirement years.

Thinking of others has done wonders for my spiritual and mental health. I get blessed when I see happy faces light up.

My reputation has preceded me. I walked into the rest home the other day and heard a resident say: "Here comes the basket lady!"