Gloria Jean, Eternally Grateful: Who Is a Woman?

By Al Willard

Gloria Jean Hudson was placed in an orphanage along with her siblings at the young age of five years old. She, along with her siblings, remained there for three years until her mother returned from Anchorage, Alaska and regained custody of them. Gloria began to support herself as soon as she graduated high school. She was Miss Anchorage several years prior to meeting Al Willard. He was a divorced father of two young boys, whom he had sole custody of, and he was also eleven years her senior. Maybe not the most obvious choice for a beautiful, single young woman in her twenties yet the Lord had other plans. Gloria once told Al when they were dating, ‘I could never love you as much as I love God.”. And throughout their marriage, this proved to be true as most every morning she could be found in prayer in her closet. She also was devoted to reading God’s word, as the worn and well-loved pages of her Bible could attest. Her life was unique and her devotion to God was a thing of beauty. In her years of pursuing and following Jesus, he showed her many things and used her in powerful ways. As Al watched her through the years, he prayed God would give him the wisdom, love and insight to love and lead her well. It was through this he began asking the question, “What was in God’s heart when he made a woman?”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664110854

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Copyright © 2021 by Al Willard.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Rev. date: 10/12/2021

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Contents

Part 1   Gloria Jean

Part 2   Who Is Woman

In Memory

of

Gloria Jean Willard

The Most Beautiful Person

I Have Ever Known

If I had a box just for wishes and dreams

that had never come true

The box would be empty

Except for the memory

Of how they were answered by you.

                                        —Jim Croce, Time in a Bottle

To our children

Jim and John Willard

Heather Lauri and Jessica Frazee

Part 1

GLORIA JEAN

Eternally Grateful

Gloria Jean, a quiet woman of few words unless God impressed her to speak, a woman of prayer and a devote reader of the Bible whom few people really knew.

Gloria, the eldest girl of seven siblings, with two older brothers, she once told me she had been cooking meals for the family since I was twelve (that could be nine people).

Her mother was young teenager when she first married. She gave birth every year to an accumulation of seven children. Her mother’s first husband was a returning wounded World War 2 veteran. When Gloria’s parents eventually divorced, her mother placed her in an orphanage. Gloria’s, when was five, and her mother moved to Anchorage to be with her mother, and while she was there, she remarried. She and her new husband returned to take her from the orphanage and move back to Anchorage. They all lived in a small two-bedroom house in the roughest area of Anchorage. Gloria rarely talked about her life in Anchorage. She was eight years old when they moved to Anchorage with their mother and stepfather. Times were hard for the family in Alaska as money was limited and living costs were high. Gloria left home after high school.

In the orphanage, when you wet the bed, you would get a spanking and sent to school with a sign on you that said bed-wetter. Gloria would take her little sister, one or two years old, put her in bed with her, take the spanking and the sign, and the school bus driver would always take the sign off. Gloria once mentioned she would go to the swings in the back of the playground, swing and sing songs to Jesus. Hearing this after knowing her for a while, realizing there’s something very amazing about out this beautiful little woman, I asked God if he had someway revealed himself to this five- or six-year-old child. He never answered, but I was left with the impression something had happened between them. Whatever happened seemed to establish baseline, a firm foundation, to the reality of the heart of God for her. At the memorial service for her, one of her best friends from Anchorage came to me and said, Well, she received the desire of her heart.

Anyone who knew her knew that about her. She once said to me, If I die before you and you pray, and he sends me back, I will king you. Gloria! Al, when I am there you leave me there! Oh, how hard it was when she had taken her last breath. But when you love your wife, how can you deny them the desire of their heart? At that moment of her death, that ugly, selfish desire hit my mind to pray and ask for more years with her, felts like getting hit by train in the depths of pure self-centered selfishness. No, I refused as my joy for her was full. I was holding her arm as she took her last breath, and in a moment, her presence was gone, and I was stunned. In a minute or two, I gained a little composure and left her to go into the living room where I struck with an extreme joy than I had ever known. I was puzzled but was so full as I am latterly dancing around the living only in time to realize from David’s words: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saint (Psalm 116:15). It was his joy I was basking in my living room. Oh, for sure, the grieving came at the loss of my best friend and is still there, and again for the most beautiful person I have ever personally known.

She was a good athlete and was the female athlete of the year in high school. Do not ever play horse with her on a basketball court (horse, a basketball game). An amusing story, she is seven months pregnant with our first eight-pound daughter. She was petite little woman and very pregnant, with our first daughter. We had a church fellowship at our home. She was on the basketball court playing horse with some of the men. She would pass up the layup shots, take a letter, and then but would back off to about the three point line or beyond, and in it went. After losing the first two games, a visiting pastor got so upset that he could not beat her left the fellowship. Gloria understood the male egos. It helped being beautiful and gifted. She would often look at me with sly smile and say, I am God’s favorite, and I know it. That five-year-old child in the swings.

I do not know I can honestly say that about myself, even though I know it is the truth. The difference being, how well we know his extravagant love for us, for those who love him, and for those who know who they are in him as an individual. She knew, and that is where her lifelong beauty came from.

Right after high school, she left home, got a job, eventually worked for Alaska Airlines working at the ticket counter, bought a car (no driver’s license, no insurance), rented an apartment, and eventually took her little sister with her. What makes a teenage girl respond that way to help protect her little sister? Her little sister eventually got a job after school as a box girl at a nearby supermarket. I will say again and again, she is the most amazing and beautiful person I personally have ever known, and for almost forty-two years of marriage, my love and respect for her increased ever year, and she became more beautiful with every passing year. Her love for her family and people also seemed to increase with every year as well.

I had moved to Anchorage to accept a teaching position with the University of Alaska at Anchorage. In my heart was the desire to keep my marriage and family together, with one son and one that was born in a few months. I failed at accomplishing the inevitable, a divorce. It ended with my wife disappearing from Anchorage. We had been attending a local Baptist church. My first wife received the Lord and was teaching a children’s Sunday school class. God’s divine grace (or my denial) never had me concerned about foul play, even though I had suspected she was having an affair with a friend. Six to seven months later, she reappeared living with the friend and only a little contact with her and our sons. Finally able to talk to her, she said, I love you both.

Well, dear, that was not what I signed up for. Later I presented her with divorce papers, giving me full custody of our sons. She signed the papers. She had left when John, the youngest, was ten months old. I loved my first wife, but in the seven years of our marriage, I was addicted to competition of road racing. My mistresses had