August 10-17, 1969

Racing through the first week of August and into the second reinforced to Nate and I that we needed to get to Champaign to work on those two important decisions: an apartment for me, which would become our apartment together after November 29… and a job.

I still held out hope for a teaching position rather than settling for low-paying work I didn’t like. My two years teaching kindergarten in Chicago had been pure joy, and I’d loved my young students like they were my own. But I didn’t even know what day Champaign kids were scheduled to start school — much less have any “in” at the Board of Ed.

Nate’s law classes would resume in September, and he needed to find a place to rent, just for the 3 months before our wedding. We were still determined to wait until after we were married before living together and knew we would fail if we tried to use the same space as platonic roommates.

Just then, as we were making a new list, I got a bad sore throat, earache, and fever. Relatives from New York arrived that day, and Mom suggested we all head for the summer cottage in Michigan… and the beach. Nate surrounded his sick fiancée with tender loving care, insisting on a visit to a Michigan doctor, who prescribed antibiotics. Two days later I was feeling better, and we were back at my apartment, reading encouraging mail from Aunt Joyce:

“I’m so glad you and Nate have included the Lord in your relationship. He is the key ingredient to marriage stability, and keeping your love alive and enduring when you face the verities of life on earth. I’m thrilled to know you are putting the emphasis on the Lord Himself, and I’m so excited and happy for you! We are all excited!”

As we drove to Champaign on August 14, we prayed that God would open doors and show us what to do at every decision point. We were at a significant threshold in our lives and didn’t want to make a misstep. And we wanted our bottom line to be exactly as Aunt Joyce had written it: putting the emphasis on the Lord Himself. That was the only way to insure we wouldn’t go wrong.

Our first stop was at a Champaign 7-Eleven where we bought a local newspaper and got a dollar’s worth of dimes to start calling on apartment rentals. We used the pay phone outside the store to begin investigating, along with the phone booth’s dangling book of yellow pages to contact the local Board of Education.

After a couple of hours, we had lined up 4 apartments to see the next day and made an interview appointment for a teaching position. But those “verities of life on earth?” We were about to connect with a big one.

“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is.” (Romans 12:2)