Emphasis Preaching Journal

A pastor received word that Phyllis had died. She was a member of a church he had served early in his career and had been his daughter's first Sunday school teacher. She was tall and skinny, and not in the best of health, but she was alive with God. She was a pillar of the church, a woman of great gifts and graces who used to say that the secret of her energy and enthusiasm was the Spirit of God that lived in her. As the pastor wrote a condolence note to Phyllis' husband, he reflected on the way the Spirit of God had dwelled in Phyllis.