Not My Will and The Light in My Window (9 page)

“Why, it’s just like the doll’s house I used to have!” exclaimed Ellen joyously, as she stepped into the cheery red-and-white kitchenette.

“Well, what do you know!” Chad exclaimed, opening the refrigerator door. “The people who lived here before us must have left us a few morsels of food.”

Ellen came and peered over his shoulder and saw that he had been shopping and stocked everything necessary for their first dinner in their own home.

“Wise man.” She laughed. “I also observe that you bought everything ready-cooked. Undoubtedly a reflection on my culinary abilities.”

“Honest, I didn’t think of that! I just wanted to save time on this special evening. We ought to spend all our time looking at each other, don’t you think?”

“Why, of course—and you couldn’t hurt my feelings if you did cast aspersions on my cooking ability. But I
will learn,
if only to show you what an excellent housewife you married.”

“I married the only girl in the world for me, and that’s all that matters,” Chad said in a low voice.

The meal was soon ready, and they sat down, not across the table from each other in proper style, but side by side, hand in hand. When they were seated Chad put his arm around his wife, bowed his head, and said softly, “We thank Thee, Father, for all Thy goodness to us, and especially that Thou hast brought us together again. We thank Thee for this home, and we ask that Thy blessing may rest on it and us. May we live and work here to Thy glory. Bless this food to our use and us to Thy service. Amen.”

E
leanor was now happier than she had ever been in all her life. At eight every morning she and Chad arrived at school and went to their separate classes. At noon they ate lunch together in a corner of Professor Nichols’s laboratory, always empty except for them, and after lunch they studied for a half hour. In the afternoon Chad went to the chemistry laboratory and worked hard until five o’clock. Eleanor worked with her slides or labored in the darkroom for one or two hours, then hurried away to buy groceries and prepare dinner. She had attacked the cooking problem with precision and thoroughness and had become fascinated by the possibilities found in the cookbook. There were some dismal failures, of course, but Chad manfully ate all that she cooked. He teased her about “pop unders” and “cardboard pie crust” if they appeared, praised her for all her successes, and was inordinately proud of her progress.

Eleanor confined herself scrupulously to the budget that she and Chad had made based on their earnings at school. Her monthly income from the lawyer lay untouched in the bank, and it became a point of honor with her never to touch a cent of it, as Chad did not know of its existence and would not understand.

“But I wonder what he would think,” she asked herself late one afternoon, while she busily peeled potatoes and onions for a savory stew, “if he knew that I could sit down and write a check that would pay for our rent and food for a whole year? He wouldn’t like it, probably—so I’ll just let the money pile up.”

So Eleanor practiced all the economies she knew and learned new ones to help stretch the little budget. She traded baby-tending for the use of a washing machine, and it was with elation that she hung her first washing on the line.

“If Aunt Ruth could only see me now.” She smiled. “She never dreamed her darling child would come to this—for the sake of a man. Dear Auntie! I wish she knew how happy I am!”

Happiness was the order of the day in the little apartment. Eleanor and Chad enjoyed sweet fellowship, studying together at the little breakfast table in the alcove, and Eleanor would one day linger long over this view in her Picture Gallery.

Yet she was unhappily aware that Chad was disturbed because their spiritual fellowship was not what he longed to have it be. The new experience he had written her about during the summer had made a difference. When he prayed before breakfast, it was not just “saying grace,” as she had always known it, but a real
morning prayer. He thanked God for the rest and care of the night, and committed them both to Him for guidance and protection during the day. Eleanor did not dislike this; it simply did not interest her much, and often she found her thoughts straying to work or lessons that lay ahead.

Every evening before Chad started studying, he would read awhile from his Bible, which always lay within easy reach on the living room table. Often he would read aloud. Eleanor enjoyed this—but more because of her admiration for her husband’s voice than of any appreciation for the text itself. However, because she saw he loved the Book, she sincerely tried to become more interested in it.

Sunday morning dawned, their first Sunday in the new apartment.

“Would you like to go to Sunday school and church with me this morning, Ellen?” asked Chad hesitantly at the breakfast table.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she replied in some surprise. “I didn’t know you had planned to go. We never used to, you know. There’s some reading I want to do before I see the professor tomorrow, so you won’t mind if I stay home, will you?”

In spite of his assurances to the contrary, Eleanor knew that he did mind, and as she stood at the window watching him go off down the street alone, she resolved to go with him hereafter, even if it were going to bore her.

On the following Sunday morning Chad was standing in front of the mirror, struggling with an uncooperative necktie, when he observed Eleanor begin to don her best dress.

“Where are you going, my pretty maid?” he quoted abstractedly.

“‘I’m going to Sunday school, sir,’ she said,” Eleanor replied demurely, getting out her powder puff; “that is, if I can find a handsome blond gentleman to take me.”

“Here’s one who will be delighted.” Chad fairly beamed. “If any other blond gentlemen turn up, tell them you already have an engagement.”

After a few blocks’ walk, Chad stopped in front of an ugly little building cramped in between two stores on a business street. “Well, here we are,” he said.

“This?” cried Eleanor, shocked.

“This is it, dear. I think you’ll like it when we begin.”

Instead of the cushioned pews that Eleanor had been accustomed to find in church, there were rows of straight, hard chairs. The painted walls were adorned only with Scripture texts. The piano was battered, the song books were ragged. Eleanor began to regret that she had worn her best dress.

“What made you choose a church like this?” she asked Chad as they sat alone in the back row of chairs.

Chad smiled at her bewilderment. “I know it must seem pretty bad, but I promised Mom I’d get into some kind of work for the Lord. All the other churches around here looked well able to get along without my talents. This one seemed nearer my size and style, so I tried it, and it ‘fit.’ Then you asked to come, and here we are!”

“At least it’s different,” Eleanor admitted. “I don’t mean to be critical. But they won’t ask me to do anything, will they?”

“I think not. Last week they only asked me to read a
verse in the Sunday school class. You could do that, couldn’t you?”

“Yes,” she whispered, “but I’d rather not do anything.”

Chad smiled.

The room was filling rapidly, and Eleanor studied the faces about her.
They don’t dress as well as the ones I know at school, but their faces are much the same,
she thought.

To her surprise, she genuinely enjoyed the Sunday school class, which was taught by a middle-aged man who knew and loved the Book he taught. His enthusiasm was such a novelty that Eleanor failed to notice the occasional grammatical error she might otherwise have heard.

But the music was an ordeal. The pianist was absent, and the nervous young girl who was conscripted to fill the vacancy managed to ruin the song service by playing with meticulous slowness in order to avoid errors. The special selection by the choir Eleanor described to herself as “ghastly.”

The sermon was the first she had heard in more than two years. The preacher—a small, insignificant-looking man with weak eyes that peered through thick lenses-mounted the platform. After one look at him, Ellen resigned herself to being thoroughly bored. She almost retracted the good resolution she had made the previous Sunday, so great was her dismay.

Yet, as he spoke she became less conscious of the man and deeply conscious of the message. He did not use eloquence, nor did he attempt to play on the emotions of his listeners. He talked with simple, straightforward directness.
The title of the sermon was “Bought with a Price,” and for the first time in her life Eleanor heard a clear, understandable statement of what the death of Christ had meant to the world. It interested her exceedingly, but it did not occur to her to apply it to herself.

Walking home later through the sun-flecked streets, Chad asked pleadingly, “Was it so very bad, Ellen?”

“It wasn’t bad at all. It was good. I’m glad I went. But I wish I could show that poor pianist how to play. Her efforts were pitiful.”

“Yes, they were pretty crude,” Chad admitted. “Yet all the time I kept thinking,
She’s probably suffering more than I am. She knows it’s bad, but she does it because she loves the Lord.”

“Do you really think He knows and cares about such little things as that, Chad?”

“Yes, certainly. If He cares about sparrows and lilies and hungry beggars, He cares about everything in our daily lives. I’m finding out now how much I need Him in everything I do.”

Eleanor did not answer. This was alien territory to her. She felt again a vague uneasiness that there was this experience in Chad’s life into which she could not seem to enter. She was apprehensive that God would somehow spoil her fun with Chad. For her, work and love were enough. She did her work well and did not feel as though she needed God, and could not understand why Chad did.

“But I do try,” she told her conscience one day. “I listen when Chad reads the Bible, and I talk about religion whenever he wants to. I go to church and Sunday school and even to prayer meetings sometimes.”

“But what do you think about when you are there?” Conscience would ask.

To this Eleanor would not reply, for she knew she usually thought about her work. While the sermon was going on, she planned experiments or labeled slides for illustrations in the professor’s book.

And yet the seed was falling on good soil, and more and more of the truths she heard being preached and taught were sinking in. She began to feel a vague dissatisfaction with herself; to feel less sure of her own conclusions about life and its meaning. She knew Chad had something she did not possess, and she knew he was longing to share it with her. The Bible readings that had at first bored her became precious, and when Chad prayed she knelt inside the circle of his arm and felt drawn close to God. Chad did not hurry her or urge her to take any step. He wanted her decision, when it came, to be not for his sake but for the Lord’s. So he waited and prayed and trusted. He saw that she was changing and thanked God for it.

On Sunday night before Thanksgiving the little minister preached again on Christ’s atoning death on the cross. It was only two months since Eleanor had heard him preach the same sermon. He seemed to fear that someone who had never known God’s plan of salvation for mankind would get away without hearing it. So it came into practically every sermon, and today, as on that first Sunday, he made it clear and simple. But there was a vast difference in one listener. The first time Eleanor had listened as one apart. Today it all seemed meant for her. And it came to her overwhelmingly how much she needed this Savior. She forgot all the people
around her, and, bowing her head, she came face to face for the first time with the question of her own relationship with the crucified One. Chad saw the bowed head and the tears that softened the proud little face and rejoiced at this sign of the Spirit’s working. But he did not question Eleanor. He knew she preferred to settle the matter alone. When she was ready, she would tell him all about it, and they would rejoice together. So he concentrated on the exams that filled the next few days and waited patiently for the happy time he felt was very near at hand.

E
xcept for one short trip to the lake in a borrowed car to bring back some dishes and linens to the apartment, Chad and Eleanor had not been there since the beginning of school. Weekends there were household tasks for Eleanor and maintenance work for Chad. Eleanor longed for the cottage, however, and on Tuesday evening the week of Thanksgiving as they munched popcorn and bent over their books in the dinette, she said, “Chad, do you think you could beg off from your work here for this weekend? Wouldn’t it be grand if we could go to the lake tomorrow night and stay until Sunday or Monday? It would make up for some of our lonesomeness of last summer.”