Molded

 It is almost 4 in the morning, and I am sitting in my favorite quiet place--my bedroom in the attic. Tonight I have the computer on reminiscing on the very beginnings of my education. I often sit here with the computer off and just relish the silence. It seems, for some reason, the one place in the house where my daily physical struggles cease. I don't know why--perhaps the stillness alone brings His presence to my soul. The bed and CD player are to my right. Attic junk is all around me. I need to start clearing things out so the kids don't have to. There are of course bookcases up here filled with all sorts of books--English and history texts, novels, non-fiction, old yearbooks all the way back to high school I think, devotionals and Bible study books. Most of them I don't look at anymore. Homesteader is in the room with me as she usually is. The ceiling is low, perfect for my in the rain dances. It has become my resting place.

Tonight for some reason--as I mentioned above--I have been taken back to my earliest years at school. Sacrifices were made by my parents to send me to this little one room Christian school. In the early 1950's they were rare indeed. All the grades were in a basement room of a church in St. Louis. I don't remember the church--only that one room. I don't remember any of the faces of the students though I'm sure I spent my first eight years of school with many of them. Hey, it was seventy years ago. The day I am in, the class is reading out loud a play I wrote on vegetables. I'm sure it won the Pulitzer Prize for kindergarten drama that year. I'm still surprised it didn't make it to Broadway?

I will always remember the teacher--Anna Irwin. A petite woman from Kansas who ended up teaching in St. Louis, Missouri. I wish I knew the story of how God brought her there. Mom would know--they were great friends--but Mom is Home spending some eternity time with Anna, I'm sure. Teaching all those grades at once--I can't imagine. I do know she instilled in one little boy a deep love for learning and a love for writing in the six years I spend under her watchful eye. She never married, but oh, how she loved her Bridegroom. That, too, was evident. Unknown to history, I can't imagine how many lives she touched. I am grateful beyond words that our Lord made her such a significant part of my journey Home. I cannot remember a day in my life when I did not feel the call to be a teacher.