Annie's 'War Room'
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on December 3, 2015 1:46 PM
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Annie Ruth Herring looks through the Bible from her personal "War Room" in her living room where she often prays and reads scripture. Like in the movie, Mrs. Herring uses the room as a place to pass along wisdom to others and be with God.
Annie Ruth Herring and her husband of 69 years, Harold Herring Sr., had not been to a movie in nine years.
They used to go frequently when they were courting, she says.
The last time they went to a movie theater was around their 60th anniversary, when a couple of Christian films came out -- "Queen Esther" and "Fireproof," the latter produced by the Kendrick brothers, who recently released "War Room."
In "War Room," the character of Miss Clara converted a bedroom closet into a prayer room.
But the real conversion took place within the heart, with her passing along wisdom to Elizabeth, a young woman battling marriage problems.
Mrs. Herring knew nothing about the movie.
But then the calls starting coming in, telling her, "You've got to see this movie. You're in it. It's you," she says.
Some even e-mailed family and friends, nudging them to buy a ticket.
"'You've got to see Miss Annie Ruth in this movie,'" she said. "I said, why is that? Why is it that they're saying I'm in this movie?"
And so she decided to go. She wound up seeing it four times.
"I tell you, the Kendrick brothers really were led of God to fix that movie," she says now.
As profoundly inspiring as it was, though, she said she didn't readily see herself in the role of the powerful black woman depicted.
Oh, sure, "Mama Herring" is known for being a prayer warrior. But the soft-spoken believer humbly shrugs off comparisons.
Until she made the connection through a recent experience.
"I had a young lady who had a real need and she came to see me," she recalls. "She came for two or three years, two or three times a week sometimes and we consumed the word (Bible).
"She's married again now and just this week she told me that her husband said, 'I know of someone that you can help. You have what it takes to help them.'"
Mrs. Herring said she was also confident that the woman was capable, much like how Miss Clara encouraged Elizabeth to pass on what she had learned.
"I couldn't figure out why everybody (compared me to Miss Clara) until this young lady said to me, 'My husband said I have what it takes to help this person,'" she said. "That's the key to the movie. I mean there are other keys.
"I think the main key is Miss Clara recognizing how bitter she was and went before God and got forgiven and then the power of forgiveness and the power of asking to send somebody to help, that was in the place I was."
In the center of her modest Walnut Creek home overlooking the water, with a sweep of her hand, she proclaims, "This is my War Room."
Like any typical living room, it features a couch and an armchair facing a TV. In front of the fireplace are two amber corduroy rocking chairs.
"At three or four in the morning, I will get up and if somebody comes to mind, I come in here and it's like God sits there," she said, gesturing to the matching chair across from her.
On a footstool rests an open Bible, her reading glasses lying on top. The hearth of the fireplace is lined with different translations of the Bible and supplemental resources.
"It's quite a war room for me," Mrs. Herring said. "I heard a minister say one time the Holy Spirit worked the most early in the morning. So when I get up, instead of lying there and letting Satan start the DVD on me, I come in here."
Prayer -- her personal conversation with God -- is not confined to any set time or place.
"Prayer is all day," she says. "Unless I'm praying in church, in our church, I never say 'amen' because I'm constantly in prayer.
"There are times when real needs come that I spend more time. When I'm cooking or peeling potatoes, or whatever I'm doing, I'm praying, I'm meditating."
She became a Christian as a teenager, but says she never received any formal Bible training, learning by studying different translations.
Her ministry began years ago, while she and her husband operated Western Auto and Grill in downtown LaGrange for 54 years.
"We had Bibles on the table and people came in for prayer, and we would take them to the office and pray with them," she said, crediting her mate with being "one of the best. I thought he was saved when we were married. He was so good. But then later the Lord saved him, and he's just extra special -- he loves people, he's a real soul winner.
"The Holy Spirit just came in and gave me a hunger for the word, I couldn't get enough of it. When I was working at the grill, I couldn't wait to get home and see what Abraham, Jacob and Isaac (were doing)."
Active in their church, LaGrange Free Will Baptist, she has taught Sunday school for years, alternating between the college class and high schoolers. They have also led a weekly Bible study at Free Gospel Church in Shine since 2005.
"I like people. I like to help them," she said, suggesting that there is a need today, especially for young people, to read and apply lessons in the Bible.
"You can't do it if you don't study. It's an exciting walk. I ask the Lord to show me where to go and then open doors for me -- if it's at McDonalds, wherever, at the mall, wherever I go. And God, He just encourages you all the time. You can't have fellowship with someone else if you don't have it with Him because you get your strength from Him."
Mrs. Herring's faith is replenished through her time with the Lord, she says, often in her own personal war room.
"I just love sitting here any time," she said. "God is not deaf to my prayers so when I pray I don't keep praying it over and over. I keep thanking Him for it.
"I don't have a close friend that you tell everything to. I mean, God is my close friend. If you go to God, and you keep it between just you and Him, that's a treasure."
Getting "married with nothing", she credits God with providing for her family -- which includes one son, Harold Jr. and wife, Bev, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
At 87, she shows no signs of slowing down, especially when it comes to serving God.
"I don't think the Bible teaches retirement. It teaches refirement," she says. Besides, her faith actually keeps her young.
"When I get up in the morning, I always praise Him before I get up because I think that opens up doors for Him," she said.
"Even if you don't feel like it, praise Him anyway and then He will lead you and He will show you the stumbling blocks to keep you from falling."