Hurley sends hugs through the mail

NANCY M. GOSS

EVERYDAY LIVING EDITOR

JAMBOREE — Thelma Hurley of Hurley, Va., spends a lot of her time at Cornerstone Apostolic Church in Jamboree. Besides being a Sunday school teacher, pianist (she plays by ear) and choir director, she writes a column, “Thoughts from Thelma,” for the church’s monthly newsletter, “The Apostolic Voice of Jamboree.”

Hurley says her writing began in a church when God told her to get a pen and write.

“Anytime God wants to give me something special, he’ll say, ‘Get a pen and write,’” Hurley says.

She says she knows it’s God because in high school when she had big assignments to write, she would have her sister write them for her because she just couldn’t do it.

She sends cards to people in the church and all around the area. If she knows the person, she may just say, “I’m sending you a hug. From Thelma.” If she doesn’t know the person, she just signs it “Cornerstone Apostolic Church.”

“Sometimes I’ll go to sleep and be awakened and a person’s name will come to my mind and I’ll ask, ‘Well, God, what do you want me to say to them?’”

According to Cornerstone Apostolic Church Pastor Richard McKinney, 150 cards are mailed each month, and at least once a year, over 3,000 people in the area receive at least one card from the church.

“Thelma is such an asset to our church,” McKinney said. “When we mail out those mailings (the invitations, cards that invite folks to come to church), she uses her own money to pay for the postage. All the church does is provide the cards and materials. We’ve been doing this for about three years.”

“I feel like, if you send them (cards), they will come,” Hurley says. “What is the church for? For souls to be saved!”

Hurley joined the church when she was 11.

“When I was just a little girl,” she said, “I’d ask my mother, ‘When can I be a Christian?’

“She would say, ‘Whenever you think you won’t be a reproach on the church, that you can live the life that it takes to live it, and not be a hypocrite or hurt somebody. When you feel like you’re at that age, then you can join the church.’

“So when I was 11, I joined the church. I say joined because then you don’t really realize about being born again, salvation or any of that. I was baptized at 12 at the Church of God in Jesus’ Name at Phelps, where Opie Harris is pastor. I grew up in that church. I’ve been a member here for nine years.”

Hurley says she was “sidetracked” for about 10 years but still felt God’s presence.

“A lot of people get sidetracked because of what man is telling them,” she says, “but we’ve got to be ordered by God’s direction. When I rise every morning, I say, ‘God, what are my orders for today?’

“Bro. Richard preached last night that many people have knowledge but they don’t have the divine direction; that’s what’s lacking in the world. And I don’t want that. I don’t want just knowledge. I want the divine inspiration that comes from God because that’s all that matters.”

Thelma says a trip to Old Mexico made a big impression on her life.

“Because I was the only one at home after my sisters got married, I was pampered and got anything I wanted. This trip was 100 miles down into old Mexico, to Matehuala I think it was called, and there’s a big water hole and the animals go down there and unload their waste, the people bathe in it, they wash their clothes in it, they drink it.

“We got stuck in a village one night and had to stay and they brought us their very best. The mattresses were this thick (holding up fingers about an inch apart), and the pillows were like that, too. But those people were so grateful for anything. Their happiness wasn’t in material things.

“Material things don’t bring you happiness,” Hurley said. “It’s God. It’s what you do with God in your life that brings happiness. And that taught me a real lesson. I was real miserable while I was there because I was so pampered, but when we entered back into the United States I just cried and wept and thanked God that I didn’t live there and for me to never take that lightly.”

Hurley’s life wasn’t always easy. There were many times when she had to do without material things.

“What brought me to the place I am today is everything I went through,” she says. “We were living in a little house next to a church, had no food, no furniture, and I was pregnant with my first baby, and they gave us a basket of fruit and there was one orange. I was crying and I said, ‘God, what am I going to do? What if my baby were here?’ And he said, ‘Well, you’d just squeeze the juice from the orange for your child and you’d eat the rest.’

“So that taught me whatever state you find yourself in, be ye content. So maybe I was a person who needed to be taught a real lesson.”

Thelma is married to Eugene Hurley, a retired coal miner.

“He’s my soulmate,” she says. “We dated 10 years before we were married. We wanted to make sure — we both had had bad marriages — we wanted to make sure it was right this time. And now we feel like we wasted that time.”

She has two sons, Adam Lee Gross of Freeburn and Paul Brent Gross of Lancaster; three stepchildren, Dana Bevins, Selena Young and Bryan Hurley; and nine grandchildren.

Born and raised at Freeburn, Thelma is the daughter of Gracie Fields of Freeburn and the late Buster Fields, who died in April 2006. She attended Freeburn Elementary and Phelps High School. Her siblings are Brenda Wolford and Joan Dotson, both of Jamboree, and Nelson Fields of Freeburn. Wolford and Dotson are both retired postmasters (Phelps Post Office) and Fields is a retired coal miner, formerly employed by Chisholm Coal Company.

Before she retired, Thelma was a supply house clerk at Chisholm.

Besides writing for the newsletter and sending out cards, Thelma wrote a story, “The Magic Forest,” for her grandson in Lexington and e-mailed him a chapter at a time. Both of her sons wrote for the church newsletter at one time, and Adam writes music and has made two or three tapes and CDs.

“Thelma does an excellent job writing articles,” says Pastor Richard McKinney.

“It’s God,” she says. “I will never be boastful in myself, because I know it is God in me. I’ve been trying to encourage others in the church to write, too. It’s not that they picked me out to do it, it’s for everybody. I mean it’s just like salvation is for everybody!”

The newsletter can be accessed at www.cornerstoneapostolic.org.

Everyday Living editor Nancy M. Goss can be reached via e-mail at ngoss@setel.com.

Story created Jan 19, 2007 - 19:44:02 CST.