As Ruthi Neely, Circle 555 Statewide Coordinator enters retirement, we asked several ladies to write a blog that shares the impact she has had on them. As a mentor, leader, teacher, and friend. Enjoy the first of several blogs to come!
Written by Tracey Wert
I first met Ruthi Neely in the Newlywed Sunday School class at First Baptist Spartanburg in 1993. She and her husband, Bob, were so gifted at drawing us in with Bob giving us the Biblical angle each week and Ruthi following up with wonderful applications for how we could incorporate the lesson into our lives. They developed this class into friends that we STILL call on after 30 years!
A few years later, after the birth of our first child, she and another precious lady, Met Schrieffer, started a Tuesday morning Bible Study attended by stay-at-home moms and ladies of other ages in the church. Having grown up at FBC Charlotte, where my mother had also grown up, I had the privilege of knowing so many of the older women who poured into me as I grew up. I truly missed having that influence being at a new church and didn’t really have an opportunity to meet and get to know any of the older ladies at this new place. During Tuesday morning Bible Studies we were divided into small groups which Ruthi and Met created by grouping 3 young moms with 3 middle-aged ladies and 3 older ladies giving me the opportunity for connection that I had so desired.
Ruthi always shared 2 rules for these Tuesday morning studies:
1. You cannot stay home just because you do not do the “homework” during the week – come anyway!
2. You cannot look at anyone else’s book to see if they have done the “homework” – there was no judgment, just the knowledge that if we came anyway, the Lord would speak to us right where we were.
Over the years, Ruthi has sometimes called me out of the blue. She would say that the Lord had brought me to her mind in the previous days and she had prayed for me. But if He brought me to mind again, she had to call and find out what was going on because typically there was a deeper issue during that time that she could pray with me about. And she didn’t just say, “I’ll be praying about that.” She would always end the conversation by saying, “Let me pray with you RIGHT NOW about that,” and she would lead us in prayer about that specific issue before hanging up. Then she would continue to pray about it on her own and even check in with me about it later.
Ruthi has been an incredible mentor to me without it being a formal mentor/mentee relationship. She is one that I could just watch and see the love of Jesus being shown in actions, spoken in words, and lived out so beautifully. I can say that knowing Ruthi has enriched my walk with Christ and spurred me to look for ways to love and minister to those around me through my own words, actions, and deeds.
To me, Ruthi embodies the Titus 2 woman (verses 3-5): “Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands so that no one will malign the word of God.”
Ruthi is a precious servant, and I am honored to call her my friend!