A Life Divided

After professing, I was expected to give “testimony”.  This consisted of studying the Bible, which was done every day, and choosing a topic on which to speak during Sunday morning “meeting”.  Throughout the year we met three times a week, Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday night.  When the summer came and all the ministers called “workers” were at different conventions and not in our area, we would only meet twice, Sunday morning and Wednesday night. 

I stood to my feet and professed my choice to follow Christ on a Saturday night meeting at a convention in the summer.  The next morning, I stood to my feet in front of the hundreds of friends gathered in the convention tent and read aloud the verse from Psalms 121:1-2. 

“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. 

My help cometh from the LORD which made heaven and earth”

I was just a third grade child.  I was giving my heart and soul to the Lord and trusting that he would keep me safe from all harm. My heart beat so loudly in my chest that I could hear it clearly in my ears and thought those around me must hear it too.  I placed my complete faith, in his hands and gave my life over to him. 

When convention was over we went back to our grandmother’s home in a small town not far away from the convention grounds.  She was not of the faith.  She was a lovely lady who served as the secretary of this and that in her local town and went to church every Sunday just down the street from her house.  But she was not saved, not according to the “truth”, not according to the workers who stood on the platform in front of all the congregation and told us that it was our duty to profess our faith in Christ to the world so that other sinners might come and be saved. 

I never understood how God could not love my grandmother.  I loved her dearly and she loved me.  I was never at peace with this thought that God would condemn my loving Grandmother to hell simply because she chose to follow him through a different path.  I never understood why this was the only way, the one true way, the truth.  If this was the truth, then everything else was a lie.  Where was the loving and compassionate and forgiving God that I read about in the Bible?  And why was I so afraid of him. 

When summer was over and we returned home to Montana, I started the fourth grade and I can’t say I remember much of anything except playing kick-the-can in the neighbor’s yard until it was so dark we could no longer see each other.  I took piano lessons from the lady across the street.  They had three children with whom I went to school.  I don’t recall disliking them, but I do remember fighting with them quite a bit.

I will call them the Krinkles.  They were also professing.  Their family was well respected amongst the friends as both of their parents were professing.  The entire family went to meeting with each other every Sunday and they had Wednesday night Bible Studies in their home.  We didn’t go to their Wednesday Bible Study, because the workers said it was better that we went elsewhere.  I was never sure they had decided that due to my father not being one of the friends anymore and we were somewhat unwanted, pariahs of a sort, or the fact that we were neighbors and possibly there was a different reason from that which I was ever able to come up with.

My family was called “divided”, since both of my parents no longer went to meetings.  It was expected that either both parents were professing or your family was considered somewhat less than the others.  You weren’t invited to ice-cream after the Sunday evening gospel meetings.  If you did happen to show up, you would see the whispers and sideways glances as you walked into the Ice Cream Parlor.  There were get-togethers and picnics and potlucks that we were simply not told about.  We weren’t invited to others homes after Sunday morning meeting and no one wanted to come to ours. 

There were a handful of people, truly good people, who I recall extending an invite during those years.  My mother was so lonely.  She had married a man whom she thought was walking in the path of righteousness and he had quit.  Simply quit.  He walked out of the church but stayed in the marriage.  This was not necessarily a good thing.  He was unhappy.  My mother was unhappy.  She refused to divorce my father because if she did she would be relegated to a life alone.  She would never be able to remarry unless my father passed away.  She would be not just unhappy, but single and unhappy.  She held on to the little that she had in their relationship.  She loved my father, but we would come to know another side of him in the next eight years.  He could be mean.  He could be so very mean.  But I will wait to tell you about that until later.