Last week Ann Hensley died. It was almost fifteen years after her beloved husband Wes had died. They’d been married sixty years. Then Ann lived as a widow for almost fifteen years, more than half of that time as a resident in Glenburn Home.
She didn’t start out as a preacher’s wife. She married a soldier. After Wes got out of the Army, he became an insurance agent. At one point Wes was even a drummer in a swing bang! Then they both became Christians. Then Wes became a deacon in First Baptist Church of Linton. Then after a while he felt the call to preach and became a pastor, first in Worthington, then in Spencer. So, Ann ended up being a pastor’s wife. (Surprise! There’s an old Jewish proverb that says, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.”)
When my family and I came to First Baptist Church in Linton all those years ago, Ann and Wes offered us unstinting support and encouragement. They were always ready with a kind word and an “Attaboy!” after a church service. Until Wes died, you really couldn’t think of Ann without him. They were always together.
They invited us once to take a trip to Chicago with them and their son David, and his wife Claudia. We went to see the Candlelight Christmas Concert at Moody Memorial Church. It was wonderful. We also went to eat at Papa Milano’s, a little Italian restaurant not far from Moody Bible Institute. That was wonderful, too. (The students at Moody said that occasionally you’d find the restaurant closed to the public, with a big black limousine parked nearby. Word on the street was that meant the Mafia was eating there that night.) Papa Milano’s has long since closed its door, but my, what great food! I took my son Josh there more than once, and his comment was. “Ravioli the size of your fist!”
I’ve lost track of how many times I’d go over to their house to talk to Wes. Ann would open the door and say, “Come in, come in!” We’d sit and pass the time of day for a few minutes in their living room. Then Ann would say, “Well, you two need to talk,” and she’d excuse herself. Wes and I would go to the study, and Ann would usually be cooking in her kitchen while we talked about whatever was weighing me down. Sometimes Ann would bring us something to drink, or offer me a snack before I left. I remember visiting her in that same house after Wes passed. I hated that she was alone there.
She would send us encouraging notes from time to time. I copied down one of them in the back of one of my Bibles. Here’s part of what it said: “ Wes and I found that most of our ministry was caring for sad, ill, hurting people. The greater our care and concern, the greater our hurt and disappointment… If I am in the ministry to see souls saved, I will die of a broken heart. My motive must be because I am in love with Jesus.” Then to my wife she wrote, “A note to Rea Anne: the closer David gets to Jesus, the easier he is to live with.” (That sounded like the voice of experience to me!)
She always gave us a gift for Christmas. I had mixed emotions about that, because I knew she was on a fixed income. One Christmas she made me cry: she gave me the pocket watch that Wes would set on the pulpit while he preached. There’s a clock on the back wall that faces me while I preach, but for a while I laid Wes’s watch on the pulpit beside my Bible. I still have it, and I treasure it.
Ann also gave me a couple of boxes of Wes’s books, including commentaries on the Bible. He had underlined and highlighted in those commentaries. I told Ann that, when I read them, it almost felt like I was reading them with him.
I know she missed Wes terribly. As time passed and her health failed, she just seemed to grow sadder and sadder. It is a difficult transition for anybody to go to live in a nursing home, and it was for Ann as well. But she needed the care a facility like that can provide. Only a few years before, Wes had spent a brief time in Glenburn. Ann’s sojourn there was to be far longer and more difficult.
But despite her own increasing weakness and pain, she seemed to make every effort to be a “bright spot” at Glenburn. She started her own “newspaper,” a single sheet printed front and back with Bible verses and encouraging quotes. She passed it out to a lot of people. And visited lots of others in Glenburn, even eventually rolling to see people in her wheelchair. You could se the effect she’d had on others by the steady stream of people coming into her room in her final days. These were employees from all over the facility, just coming to see how Ann was doing. Her daughter-in-law Claudia told me they would say things like, “I just loved her! She was so sweet and so encouraging!”
Those of us who knew her best knew how much she struggled with fretfulness, and worry, and loneliness, and a broken heart. But she loved and was so proud of her family, and she would give me the updates on all of them when I came to see her. She has all kinds of photographs of her children, grandchildren, and great- grandchildren up on her bulletin board and closet door.
She would often say to me, “I don’t know why God has left me here.” She told me she wasn’t afraid to die, but she said, “I just hope I don’t suffer!” I told her, “Ann, you’ve been suffering for eight years.” She’d ask me, “Pray God would just take me Home.” I could never bring myself to pray exactly that, but she wanted to go to Heaven so badly. She missed Wes, and she wanted to see Jesus.
Then on Friday evening, May 16th, 2025, during the tornado that ravaged the north of Linton, with Claudia by her side, Ann finally got her fondest wish. It wasn’t quite like Elijah ascending to Heaven in a whirlwind, but it made me think of that (2 King 2:11-12).
For the Christians, the best day of your life will be the day you die. A few days before she died, I told Ann about Presbyterian Pastor H. S. Laird, who sat with his father who was dying. At one point he asked his father, “Dad, how do you feel?” … And his father said, “Son, I feel like a child on Christmas Eve!” When I told that story to Ann, she looked at me and gave me a small smile. She was anticipating Heaven, too.
I would quote Scripture verses to her before we prayed together, and she would always quote John 14:1-16 along with me. She tried to say it with me a day or two before she died, but she could no longer form words. This passage was precious to her, because that’s where Jesus tells us what His Father’s house is like. Jesus opened the way to Heaven for us. Ann sure wanted to go there, to be with Jesus, and to be with Wes again.
I bet she’d be happy to welcome you there, too.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor David