by Darrel Bird
A yoke Unequal
By Darrel Bird
Copy©right 2014 by Darrel Bird
Ellen Gray goes to Washington
Ellen and Jerry Gray were married right out of college. Ellen was a Christian, and made the mistake many Christians make. She married a non-believer, thinking she would get him saved later, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get him to darken the church doors. She felt miserable when she attended church alone, but she went, and took their two kids anyway.
It broke her heart when her four year old would ask, “Why isn’t daddy coming with us?”
“Daddy is tired today sweet heart.” She would lie. She knew in her heart that a lie was not the answer.
“Daddy is tired a lot isn’t he?” Her husband hardly ever took them out any more. He was training for the CIA of all things. He was smart, and he could have picked almost any field he wanted.
This day the pastor preached on Corinthians II 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
She knew the answer to that…don’t. The pastor ask if anyone wanted to come, and pray after the service, and she allowed her friend Jessica to watch the children while she went up to pray. Her church was an old fashioned Pentecostal church that still had prayer alters near the podium. They were up front where everybody could see who prayed, but this day, she didn’t care who saw. She knelt at the alter, and poured her heart out to God unceasingly for an hour. She not only poured her heart out, she cried her heart out. She realized she was suffering because she had ignored what the bible says about it. She was fully aware that she had been presumptuous to think she could get her husband saved after the fact. It made her more miserable to realize she had been presumptuous with God, but the fact was, the damage had been done, and damage control in that kind of situation is mute, ineffective unless God stepped in, and that is what she begged God to do that Sunday.
It gave her at least some measure of peace to admit her fault, and to leave it in Gods hands. That didn’t mean her husbands unsaved condition wouldn’t haunt her later. She knew the peace was only temporary. A Christian marrying an unbeliever is a gift that keeps on giving, and for her children, maybe long after she was dead, but as long as she had life, she would pray.
Six months following that Sunday, Jerry came home and announced that they were moving to D.C.
She looked around at the comfortable apartment they had in Atlanta. She had known from the start that it was only temporary while he finished his training, but she had ignored that fact too. I’m good at ignoring things that matter. She thought as she sat and stared at her husband. “Jerry, why do we have to move? Isn’t there a job you can do here?”
He was staring at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he could have read the news on the internet, but he liked to read the print copy. He would read the political news, and then the rest would go into the garbage can. That particular Sunday afternoon the kids were napping, and the living room was quiet. That was his time he said, and he made her put the kids down for a nap.
“If I’m going to get anywhere in the CIA, it’ll be from Washington, and I’m not going to turn an opportunity down that may not come again. I may end up with a forgotten desk job here in Atlanta. We’ve already talked about this Ellen.”
“No, you talked about it Jerry. The kids are just learning their school, and I have my friends, and a church I love here. Please Jerry, won’t you reconsider?”
“I’ve told you I have to go, I have to go where they send me anyway, I can’t just pick and choose.”
“You could get a different job couldn’t you? They let you quit don’t they?”
“I’ve studied too hard for this honey, I can’t just quit.”
She knew she was being unreasonable, but she hadn’t thought it through, she had just taken it for granted that when he joined the CIA, he would work in Atlanta. Yet another presumption that I have made. Is there no end?
Jerry had a week leave, and they spent the next week getting ready for the trip to D.C. on Friday. The u-haul was backed up to the door, and Jerry was loading the last of it on the trailer.
“Do I have time to go over to Jessica’s to say goodbye?”
“I thought you already said goodbye.”
“I did, but I want to speak to her about something, I won’t be long.”
The truth was, she wanted to go to the church, and pray again one more time before she left. She felt at home there, and she also did want to see Jessica again before they left for no telling how long. She pulled up in front of the church, got out of the car, and looked at the familiar front lawn. She walked up to the front door, and got out her key, she would leave that with Jessica before she left. She walked into the silent church. It was just walls, ceilings, and floors without the people there.
She knelt at the old wood alters where a million tears had fallen. Those alters were over a hundred and 30 years old, outlasting three new church buildings. They had sat there silently waiting for those in need of solace when Hood passed through during the civil war, and today she found her solace as she rubbed her fingers over the wood. She sat there rubbing the wood as she asked God one more time to please save her husband, no matter what it took.
She knew what she was asking, knew what might accompany that prayer. She knew the suffering she might be asking for, for both her, and her husband. She asked God to spare her children from the suffering the future might bring. She wasn’t quite honest, and afterward she wondered what her lack of honesty would bring.
She got back in the car, and drove to her friend’s house praying that she would be home. She drove into their neat driveway. Jessica’s husband was a local building contractor, and he always found time to keep the modest home spic, and span, so the driveway was of new perfectly laid concrete. Oh what she would give to have a modest home, with a husband who worked local, not off in D.C. somewhere.
She knocked on the door and Jessica answered, “Hi Ellen, I thought you guys had left for D.C. already.”
“We are leaving as soon as I get back to the apartment, I wanted to drop the church door key by.” Theres that lack of honesty again. I guess I’m good at it. The only thing is, I only end up fooling myself, Jessica will know better.
“Do you really think God answer’s prayer Jessica?”
“I know he does Ellen, it may not be specifically our idea of answers. Often times we pray amiss.”
“Yes, I get that. I’m at the point to where I am ready to except his answers any old way he sees fit.” She handed her the door key.
“Have to run now Jessica, Jerry will be in a hurry to get on the road.”
They hugged, and she saw Jessica in her rear view standing by the street waving goodbye. Somehow she knew that their lives were about to go through great changes.
When she got back with the car, Jerry hooked the trailer to it, saying nothing, and she figured he probably thought it would do no good to say anything so he just decided to go with the flow.
When they arrived in D.C. the cherry blossoms had full sway along the Potomac. Ellen loved that time of year in Washington; she stood outside their new apartment taking in the view. Jerry had gone to the DOD to report in, and wouldn’t be back for hours to help her unpack. For once the children were sitting in the corner with coloring books instead of running around getting underfoot. She wondered why Jerry even wanted to be CIA, the ones that she knew seemed cold, aloof, non-committal, and uncaring people. Would that be the way he would end up? She envisioned him five years from now, a jaded, suspicious caricature of his old self, and the vision scared her. She sighed, turned away from the view along the Potomac to the view of being a faithful house wife with kids to
raise.
Fodder for the cannon
Jerry tried to gather his thoughts as he drove to the DOD, he didn’t know why they wanted him down there, but he had already become used to the fact that no one in the offices of the CIA explained anything to him.
They said go, and you went, but if he had known what those fools had in store for him, he would have turned that car around, went and gathered up his lovely Christian wife, and went back to Georgia , bought a farm, and lived out his life on it. He thought about his life so far with Ellen. He loved her, but he hated the distance the Christianity thing brought. He knew she was a Christian when he married her. She had not hidden the fact that she was a Christian, and that purity only made him love her the more. Most of the women he knew would hop into bed at the drop of a hat. Not her, she had slapped the hell out of him when his hands got too roamy. He
