I am a Jewess and a widow. My husband was Greek. He died when our son Timothy was very young. My mother opened her home to me and my son. We live in Lystra, a city in the Roman province of Galatia.
I worked whenever I could find employment, just as did others in my situation. Some women gleaned in the fields as did Ruth of Old Testament days. Others worked in the textile business or wove tents. When I was away from home my mother cared for Timothy. She and I shared the belief that providing good early training of this child was our most important task. We instructed him in the stories from the Books of Law and the Prophets. We gave him the opportunity to learn of the knowledge of the great judges and prophets and to be exposed to the wisdom in Psalms and Proverbs. Then there came a time when we learned of Christianity.
The Apostle Paul has made several missionary journeys. It was on his first journey that he came to our city and introduced us to the power of God through Jesus Christ. My mother and I adopted the faith and in turn we instructed Timothy in this new faith. A few years later, Paul returned to Lystra and found Timothy to be a young man of good reputation. Timothy was a youth of about 15 years, quite young to leave our home. But Paul wanted him to journey with him. Since that time, Timothy has traveled in the name of Christianity through Galatia, to Troas and Phillipi, then to Thessalonica and Berea. And Paul has bestowed upon him the greatest of all compliments, calling him, "my dearly beloved son" (II Timothy 1:2).
Did you know that n the New Testament scriptures, the word “grandmother” is used only once?
Let me share the verse with you; it tells our names. Paul wrote this to Timothy, :I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother LOIS and your mother EUNICE and now, I am sure, lives in you” (II Timothy 1:5).
Copyright ©2004. Beverly Whitaker
Eunice
II Timothy 1:5