Enjoy life
The day I meet Dot Butler, the sun is shining, the sky is perfect blue, and everyone is dressed in warm coats and woolly scarfs. It seems fitting that our meeting venue is our very own Pittwater Uniting Church (PUC), because Dot has been a part this place since the very beginning; 1956 to be exact.
Dot tells of her years of studying nursing when she would be working from 6am to 6pm. She would rarely get off before 7pm, and so would miss the beginning of church. Not one to just miss out all together, Dot says she would "sit outside on the fence in my nurses uniform and listen to the rest of the service from there." For Dot, being part of PUC means "belonging to a church family". She currently attends the 8:30am service, but up until August last year, she would occasionally visit the 6:30pm service.
Dot says she has had a good life and can’t complain. She says, “If you don’t have to go through your problems, then you can’t have conversations with other people. What you go through makes you into who you are today.” Dot has seen her fair share of life’s tough ones. She lost her mother at age eleven, her husband and two children.
It was through these tough times that the church family really came into its own for Dot. She says that through those difficult times in life, the strength and support she got through her family at PUC really made the difference; “That sort of thing is not easily forgotten”.
When I ask Dot what makes her passionate in life, she immediately answers, “Children”. Seeing children abandoned or neglected is what really gets her going. Her husband, Hugh, did some youth work and they had five boys of their own. She says that if the finance of bringing up children right wasn’t so hard, “I could have gone on to have a whole footy team I was that keen!”
This passion in Dot’s heart hasn’t changed over the years; “I was a great babysitter as a child, I would take the babies out for walks.” This passion grew with her. She tells of filling in as mother of the bride for a young woman in her life quite a few years ago. This lady didn’t have a lot of financial help and Dot wasn’t in a position to be spending a lot. When it came time to organise the wedding dress, Dot took them down to a shop she knew hired wedding dresses out. “Puffed sleeves and a bow at the back,” were the requirements. She told the shop assistant this and says that the “Lord really provided”. Out the back the woman had a dress with, yes, “puffed sleeves and a bow at the back” that they had hired out for the required amount of times and was being sold cheaply. Of course it was the perfect size as the bride stood on a turning rotunda surrounded by mirrors. Dot says that to this day, the young lady still has the dress tucked away as a treasure. Isn’t that a story you know is just from God for us girls?
When asked what advice she would give to the younger women at PUC, Dot gives a laugh and leans back on the lounge. She thinks for a moment before she says, “Enjoy life. Don’t build up things you’ll have regrets for later. Put your Christian faith in the centre of your life and you’ll have a lot of help and support. I have the Alcoholics Creed on my fridge and I think that whoever you are, wherever you are, if you try to live by that, you’ll be right.”
Dot loves to eat Asian food and when pressed to choose just one favourite Bible verse she chose Ephesians 4:31-32. “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
And that is a snapshot of the lovely Dot Butler. Can you believe this mother of five also used to ride a lightweight motorbike? Dot is vivacious, full of life, funny and clever. When I walked out of our meeting I felt richer. What a privilege it was to talk to this lovely woman of God. My heart smiles as I see already how 'Shimmer Life' is bringing unity within the women at PUC. God took an 8:30am woman and a 6:30pm girl and brought them together for a united cause.
Shu-Xin Behr
Serenity Prayer (Alcoholics Anonymous Creed)
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time,
accepting hardship as the
pathway to Peace.
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things
right
if I surrender to His will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life,
and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.
Amen.
