Category Archives: Obedience

Newlywed Love (#49)

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April 4, 1970

Once we flipped the wall calendar from March to April, summer seemed almost on top of us. Both of us needed to find summer jobs to help with tuition payments, and our savings badly needed a boost.

Logo

Nate’s work doing taxes for H & R Block had been a gift from God, paying well and allowing us to catch up a bit financially. But in less than two weeks that job would disappear, and we’d be back to living on my slim teaching salary — with nothing coming in all summer.

 

WaitressingSince I had several months of waitressing experience, I figured I could get a serving job without too much difficulty, and Nate said he was willing to do almost anything. He also hoped to take a couple of law classes over the summer to lighten his fall load, so he could continue working through his last semester of law school.

He was using every spare minute to write 3 long papers, one about 30 pages. I volunteered to type for him, but he was a good typer, too. Besides, he would have had to spell out all the legalese.

So, when my friend Connie called to say she wanted to come for the weekend with 3 of our former campers (from Moody Youth Camp) I said, “Yes!” ….promising Nate that the 5 of us would find entertainment away from the apartment so he could work in peace.

It was a treat spending time with Connie again and reconnecting with these energetic high school girls. Gail, Debbie, and Laurie were a lively trio that loved action, so we took them to Allerton Park for the day and ran around the 1500 acre estate until Connie and I were ready to drop.

Allerton SculptureRobert Allerton (son of Samuel Allerton) managed his family’s large property near Champaign while his father tended to businesses in Chicago. Robert’s true passion was art, with a special fondness for sculpture. He believed art could enhance nature…. and vice versa.

On the Allerton property, then, are his collected works throughout the manicured gardens and natural areas.

 

Allerton...Finding them all (over 100) on miles of trails can take several days. The girls had never seen anything quite like it.

They were also delighted to get inside the gorgeous mansion, astounded to see how “the other half” lives. And all of it was free.

 

Allerton Mansion.

Meanwhile, Nate plowed through the day pursuing his studies, and we shared the dinner hour with him before Connie left with the girls, promising to bring them back for church in the morning. We would share lunch afterwards, then wave them off to Chicago.

That evening Nate went back to his typewriter after the meal, telling me he’d have to labor well into the night. My heart went out to him, and it didn’t seem fair that my life was so easy compared to his. But the end was in sight: summer school, then the fall semester, and in January of 1971, graduation!

I was extremely proud of my man and his gritty diligence. So, before I went to bed by myself that night, I told him so.

“The wife must see to it that she respects her husband.” (Ephesians 5:33)

Newlywed Love (#30)

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February 9, 1970

Nate and I were fast becoming good friends with Linda and Judy, along with their husbands. All of us were in our first year of marriage, making similar adjustments to each other and our new roles. Linda’s husband Ron was a salesman who traveled with his job, needing to stay out-of-town one or two nights a week.

Rip does tricksLinda missed him on those nights, so we often asked her to join us for dinner – primitive that it was. Sometimes she brought her dog Rip, who entertained us with a repertoire of tricks.

Linda didn’t drive, so when she came for dinner, Nate picked her up at the Country Fair Apartments and brought her over, driving her home afterwards. One night, after another deep snowfall, the roads hadn’t been plowed, and Nate was taking her home. As they turned into her complex, he didn’t see one of the large white rocks edging the driveway, and he drove up and over it.

Linda with RipHis VW got tightly stuck, refusing to move forward or back. So, using his bare hands (for lack of gloves), he kneeled in a snow bank and worked to dig away the packed snow from around the rock. Then he battled the heavy rock itself, eventually wrenching it out from under the car just enough so the car could move.

Linda cheered him through the long, cold process and felt bad about the whole thing, but of course it wasn’t her fault. In a report to me afterwards, she bubbled over with praise for Nate’s gallant good deed on her behalf. “He’s my unsung hero!” she said.

Cathy and JohnAs we stockpiled experiences together, our friendships were deepening with the carpool couples and also with others. About this time our friends Cathy and John got married, adding to our group of newlywed pals. John and Nate were in law classes together while both Cathy and I worked to support our men. It helped all of us to know that others were in our same boat.

In addition to these, we were making new friends at Champaign’s First Baptist Church.

Pastor Ralph Nast and his wife Lottie taught the young married group, and a dozen couples gathered every Sunday morning before the church service to study what Scripture had to say to them, many of whom were newlyweds like us.

First Baptist Church

Pastor Ralph skillfully guided our discussions as we grappled with some of life’s prickly problems. And we learned that virtually every question we asked was answered in the Bible. It turned out to be a time of rapid spiritual growth for all of us.

Most of us recognized that this was a unique time in our lives, because we were in the midst of making some of the most significant, far-reaching decisions we would ever make. We’d all made two big ones, deciding to get married and to whom, but other important choices lay just ahead. Many in the group were also deciding yes or no to Jesus Christ.

Hashing things out with friends turned out to be a big help. And Pastor Ralph taught us that Jesus was offering to be a friend to all of us – a friend whose advice should always be carefully considered, because it would be superior to guidance from any other source.

Jesus said, “I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15)

Newlywed Love (#28)

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February 3, 1970

Connecting with my 1st graders each morning was always uplifting, and I’d gotten to know them well. We had an open house coming up during which I could get acquainted with their parents, and though it involved lots of preparation and made for a long day, I was looking forward to it. I was working hard to have something positive to say that night about each student — even the “problem children.”

Hoping my kids were progressing academically and also relating well to each other, I wanted each parent to be proud of their own child.

Spelling listHowever, one afternoon just before the open house, we were playing a spelling game in class when a boy named Bobby cheated to win it. Another child exposed him, and there was a class uproar over it. I told him to stay after school so we could talk about it, hoping that by then I could figure out what to do.

Bobby agreed, but when the bell rang, he raced out and sprinted across the front lawn. Of course the other children, wanting justice, alerted me. “Bobby’s running away!”

I sprinted out after him, catching him by his coat. “Remember about our talk?” I said.

“I know,” he said, looking at the snowy ground.

The two of us trudged back into school, and I explained the serious nature of cheating, hoping it was sinking in.

A teacher's letter“So…. what do you think we should do about this?”

I was surprised when he said, “I think…. write a note to my mom and tell her.”

He stood next to me, watching me write. When I was done, I folded the paper, and asked him to take it to his mother. He said he would.

But then I decided to add one more sentence: “Please sign this note and return it with Bobby so I know you received it.” I drew a line and put an X in front of it, showing him I wanted his mother to put her name there. His brow furrowed, but he pocketed the note and said goodbye.

The next morning Bobby walked in with a smile, handing me my signed note as well as 3 pages written by his mother. “She’s not mad,” he said.

His mother’s note agreed that cheating was a big deal. She’d had a serious talk with Bobby, telling him that if it happened again, “stronger action would be applied.”

She wrote that Bobby wanted me to be proud of him, and that he had run away because he knew he’d disappointed me. She explained that the source of his bad behavior might have been baby brother Billy. Bobby was jealous of Billy getting to stay home with her all day, saying it wasn’t fair.

A mother's letter.

There was sibling rivalry with lots of teasing and follow-up discipline, the stress of which was “spilling over on the other members of the family.” And she thanked me for “taking the time to talk to Bobby and to let her know the problem.”

A mother's letter

I decided to give Bobby extra attention — starting with praising him for delivering my note to his mother and bringing hers back to me. In the end, I felt like the whole incident had worked out well.

That afternoon it occurred to me that in many respects I was like a mother-away-from-home for my young students, and I wondered if some day I might get to be a real mother. If so, I was fairly sure the job would be challenging, and I hoped I would be up to it.

“To discipline a child produces wisdom.” (Proverbs 29:15)