Tech School, Eric, and a California Wedding

I began to think seriously about this Eric Haley fellow because he was so serious about me. What were the pros and cons? Pros – he was really cute! He gave me his high school picture and I put it in my wallet. He had his own car. He knew the same songs I did, and we made beautiful music together. And we could talk about anything together. He had quickly become my best friend. We both loved Jesus. He spoke of a coffeehouse ministry where he’d come from, that sounded like the Fire Escape where Joe had taken me. And he wasn’t going to leave me because I had joined the Air Force!

Cons. Were there any? Was I sure I loved him? Or did that matter?

Eric made good on his promise to visit me at tech school in Wichita Falls. I think only a week passed before he came. It turned out that while we were dating, he was applying to separate from the Active Duty Air Force under the Palace Chase program, trading his remaining active duty time for twice as much time in the Air Force Reserve. During that application period, he had to return to Indiana for an interview. I was on the way. 

He brought his guitar that weekend, a Spanish guitar he named “Cheva” after my grandmother. And he sang me love songs, right there in the open air, like John Denver’s “My Sweet Lady” and “This Old Guitar” with the words changed to “This Lord of Mine.” To this day, I cannot hear those two songs without getting a buzz and thinking of my romantic suitor. This was definitely a new thing for me!

The second time he visited me, he did ask me to marry him, and I said no. A few hours later, I said yes – out of the blue. He hadn’t asked the question again – I just answered it again. I had pretty much decided that instead of trying to analyze whether I was in love with him or not, I would just acknowledge that here was a man who was everything I wanted in a mate. He was my best friend. And he not only didn’t leave me – he actually pursued me, the way Jesus pursued the Church, so that the Apostle John says: “We love Him because He first loved us.”

And then we immediately went to a local jewelry store to find a ring. He wanted to make sure the overwhelming number of male trainees at Sheppard AFB knew I was taken. Eric went back to Indiana, filed for unemployment, and waited for my graduation from tech school.

My roommates knew all about this guy, and they said that Lackland romances never worked out. How do you counter that kind of pessimism? We had no proof to the contrary, only a stubborn determination to see it through and keep our vows. We just told them they could come to our 50th wedding anniversary party. That would actually be in only about five years now, but I sure can’t remember anyone’s names and wouldn’t be able to tell you where they lived, to say nothing of the high probability that they wouldn’t remember me. 

We wrote many letters – he, every day, and I, as often as I could – where we poured out our hearts to one another about everything we could think of. Eric recorded a tape of himself that I still have, where he was talking to me and sharing the Sunday morning sermon at his church, singing various songs, and singing still other songs he had written himself. It was beautiful to hear his voice and play the tape whenever I wanted to. He made me a couple of campaign promises that he couldn’t keep, like getting me a kitten after we got married. He didn’t know he was actually allergic to cats! But one of his songs I planned into our wedding.

Oh yes, the wedding! I was doing that on the side! You see, when I arrived, my school didn’t start right away, as I had thought. I was a “PIT” – pre-training – for about six or seven weeks, where I did everything from pulling CQ (Charge of Quarters) to washing windows. I think maybe God delayed my orders somehow in response to Eric’s fasting and prayer, causing me to miss the start date of the class with the emergency opening, with the result being that I had to wait till the next class started – the one I had originally signed up for. 

During my Christmas leave, I flew back to California, where I spent some time one-on-one with my mom. We went to a Calvary Chapel New Year’s Eve Concert and the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena while I was home, and talked about the wedding. Mom was supportive, but had never even met Eric, and again, this was before the days when you could just have a Skype meeting. I probably mailed her a picture, and I probably arranged for Eric to talk to her on the phone, but mostly my parents just simply trusted my judgment and got ready for a March wedding.

Mom made arrangements by calling me at tech school and asking me all the pertinent questions. I visited a local store somehow and picked out the fabric and pattern for my wedding dress and Diana’s maid of honor dress and mailed them out. Mom’s older friend Hazel made my dress and Diana made her own. Eric booked Bob, the only friend he knew in California, to be his best man. My brother Dan got roped into being an usher whether he wanted to or not, and Joel also served. We told people just to wear blue or purple and it would all be good. My sister Rennie found a beautiful new dress and put her hair up – even though she wasn’t in the wedding.

We were to marry at the Los Alamitos Naval Air Station Chapel, but with a Calvary Chapel pastor, on a Wednesday night in March. Mom was able to snag Pastor Don McClure, who was at the time a young assistant, but couldn’t get Children of the Day as I requested, since they were on tour. She did find someone from the Music Resource Center at Calvary Chapel, who played guitar and who learned Paul Stookey’s “Wedding Song” and Eric’s song from the tape. 

We would have banana nut wedding cake and punch, mints, and nuts, with bouquets of orchids. Grandpa Ware booked the Hawaiian Gardens Lions Club for the reception, and Eric would sing for us there.

Meanwhile, Valentine’s Day was coming up, and Eric’s birthday was the day after it. I went to the BX (Base Exchange) and picked out a blue leather jacket for him. It was rather pricey, but he was going to be my husband! Unfortunately, I didn’t have a box. So I took the only box I had, a Kleenex box, and stuffed that thing full of the jacket to ship it to Indiana. Yes, my future mother-in-law thought I must be crazy, but she’d never met me, either! And, everybody loved the jacket.

Eric bought me a couple of weeks’ worth of presents, shipping them all in one large box. They were all wrapped and labeled with the day I was supposed to open them, with little love notes inside. It turned out I was sick with a stomach flu on Valentine’s Day, compounded by secondhand smoke in a crowded CBPO (Personnel Office). But I had a fuzzy Love Bug and a lot of love notes to keep me happy as I took the rest of the day off.

Finally, after seven weeks of actual technical school training, the Air Force had taught me basic COBOL, and I was ready to be useful.

Eric arrived on the proper day at Sheppard AFB, just as I was marching back from school on the day I graduated. Being the right guide, the entire flight was lined up on me, to my left, and behind me, along with other flights in the squadron behind ours. He thought it humorous to stand directly opposite from me when the flight halted but had yet to be dismissed, so we were still standing at attention. 

The man grinned, waved, blew kisses, and everything else he could to make me break my placid concentration. And as soon as we were dismissed, we were together again, doing one of those slow-motion running-into-each-other’s-arms scenes. At least that’s how I remember it – Eric remembers it a little differently. 

Our agenda, the week of the wedding, began on Sunday – we took a walk along the beach of an ocean Eric had never before seen, but since it was March, it was far too cold to swim. Except that Eric REALLY wanted to put me in the water, … and he would NOT take no for an answer, even though I was wearing my brand new blue jeans. So, he struggled with me and was finally able to get my pants wet, and I had some last-minute second thoughts about just how our marriage would go.

We had a bridal shower on Monday night, hosted by my maid of honor, Diane, who was a member of the Baptist Church Youth Group and who played in their orchestra. She invited several members of the Youth Group to the bridal shower, including some guys, so I had some new trinkets and such to add to the hope chest Dad had built for me back when I was in sixth grade. 

We met Pastor Don McClure the day before the wedding (Tuesday) and had only one counseling session. (What made him agree to that?) He wasted no time. In a matter of minutes, he had us confessing our sexual sins and repenting. NOW we were ready.

The next day, we ate hot dogs with Coney sauce at Bob’s Big Boy, along with Pastor Don and the wedding party, directly followed by the wedding itself. Eric said he would only have onions on his Coney dog if I did. (I can’t remember if we did.) Here’s the wedding party:

Here is my favorite wedding tradition. And I don’t think I even knew this till I heard about the tradition while we were planning one of our daughters’ weddings. My favorite part is walking down the aisle. The tradition says the bride's former suitors are part of the ceremony, watching from the audience. But the bride's gaze is fixed firmly on the man at the end of the aisle, her intended, her True Love. Everyone else is passed up – all the old beaus are rejected as she passes them, until finally, she has physically “forsaken all others.” 

This is a picture of Christ and the Church, His Bride, and in March of 1975, the two of us were reenacting on earth what has already taken place in Heaven. Just look at these prophetic words about the wedding of the Son of God, from Psalm 45:

All Your garments are scented with myrrh and aloes and cassia, Out of the ivory palaces, by which they have made You glad.

Kings' daughters are among Your honorable women; At Your right hand stands the queen in gold from Ophir.

Listen, O daughter, Consider and incline your ear; Forget your own people also, and your father's house;

So the King will greatly desire your beauty; Because He is your Lord, worship Him.

And the daughter of Tyre will come with a gift; The rich among the people will seek your favor.

The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace; Her clothing is woven with gold.

She shall be brought to the King in robes of many colors; The virgins, her companions who follow her, shall be brought to You.

With gladness and rejoicing they shall be brought; They shall enter the King's palace. 

~Psalm 45:8-15

We did forget a few things, like turning on the tape recorder and planning for a recessional song. My veil was accidentally constructed upside-down, and I stepped on my hem on the way up to the altar. But the wedding “took.” Approximately 40 people witnessed it. 

The ushers painted the car windows with shoe polish, and when it was all over, we raced down the road from Los Alamitos to the reception in Hawaiian Gardens, with all the horn honking we could muster. My mom had a “Moo” horn in her car and my dad had an air horn and an “Ah-OOO-gah.”

On Wednesday night, we stayed at the Disneyland Hotel, a gift from Aunt Jackie. On Thursday night, we slept together on my mom’s couch. Or, well, I did, and Eric mostly slept on the floor. Our first difference of opinion: Was it a couch or a sofa?

By Saturday we had a new trailer hitch installed on Eric’s Maverick and filled a small U-Haul trailer with all my earthly possessions, including my hot pink bean bag chair and fuzzy blankets, a sleeping bag, and my homemade plywood hope chest with a few dishes and pans in it. Then we aimed that Maverick towards my first permanent party assignment at Air Force Systems Command Headquarters, Andrews AFB, Maryland, by way of Lafayette, Indiana, where I would finally meet Eric’s parents and we would have another shower. 

Eric and I sang boisterously in the car and had a great time, until we were stopped by a policeman for speeding. He saw what the ushers did to the car, though, and congratulated us. It had been a week to remember!

On Meeting Margie (Eric’s Perspective)

For the purposes of this narrative, my life began when I was 14. In the summer of 1969, I was born again. This was a real conversion from death to life in a truly spiritual way. My life’s direction changed dramatically. My introverted nature changed, and so did my vision for the future. I became “the preacher” to many of my friends. I was a wholehearted and full-throated Jesus Freak, sharing the Gospel clearly and without hesitation. My focus in life was now ministry … and girls. 

OK, there were a few things that didn’t change, but even my early searching for “the right one” was now with the understanding that I would find her in the Body of Christ. I was looking for someone who was on the same road and wanted to share in my life’s journey. That search had always been interrupted and my hopes dashed, mostly by the lack of shared vision. I was not finding the perfect mate. 

Of course that very rarely happens at age fourteen, or fifteen, or even sixteen, but by the time I reached 18 and had joined the military (at the suggestion of a girlfriend), I had a wallet full of pictures of all my past hopefuls, so much so that it raised eyebrows when the Basic Training Instructor ordered us to empty our pockets and our wallets and lay everything out on the bed. Instead of asking me questions like, “Any roach clips?” he asked, “Any condoms?” I had no condoms, but I sure felt condemned. 

In the fall of 1974, after 14 months in the Air Force, I had finally arrived at the end of my vain search for the “right one.” I was emotionally worn out. I even made a vow to the Lord that I was going to wait on Him, and I shared this with some of my closest friends. Then, within a week, it all happened. I fell totally and incurably in love.

I was singing in a church choir at the Lackland Air Force Base Chapel, when I looked out into the crowd of young men and women, and I saw her for the first time. It was hard to explain to my confidantes in this matter that I fell in love with her before I even met her. “You are hopeless!” was the most remembered expression when I told them about Margie: a beautiful, joyful, very talkative young lady that just gave me every confidence that God was listening to my prayers. Margie Linda, or as she taught me to say it, “Margieleenda” …Antanac No! Anastacio No! Margieleenda Atanacio! 

We were married just a few months later, and now we have been married for 45 years. That whirlwind moment in our lives cannot be explained as wisdom, maturity, or even stepping out in faith. We were, perhaps, foolishly in love, but the foolishness was only on our part. God, in His wisdom, had put two people together in the right place and at the right time. I have never, ever doubted that. 

Back to Margie now: See what I mean about that poster? (See the beginning of my last post.) The Lord brought us together, and we have always been in awe of that.

Basic Training and Eric

There’s a poster Eric and I have had for many decades. We bought it soon after we were married, and during most of our life together, it has been positioned on the inside of our bedroom door so we could stare at it and memorize every line of it. Now? It’s on the outside of our bedroom door. Yep, it’s a little beat up, but it’s still there! It’s a cartoon sketch of a guy and a girl all tangled up on the floor amidst several overturned books. The caption is “The Lord must’ve brought us together.”  In the next few chapters, you can see God’s hand in our lives as He did just that.

When I arrived at Lackland AFB, Texas, I was a valuable recruit, with a grade point average above 4.0 and a diploma marked “With Highest Honors.” I was Somebody. Quickly, that melted away when I found out I could not make my bed fast enough. I had been given the responsibility of being a squad leader after a few days, only to eventually be fired because I couldn’t keep my area perfect and also be responsible for the other girls in my squad. I was too slow. Once, someone short-sheeted my bed, which resulted in more delays and getting in trouble. 

And another time, I was grounded for taking a picture of the outside of our dorms because in the short amount of time it took me to line up the picture with some willing passersby, someone caught me outside without my hat on and asked for my 341.  

To make matters worse, I got a letter from my boyfriend telling me, “We need to just break off the relationship, Margie. You should stop thinking about boys and focus on Jesus.”

Just in case you’re wondering, writing someone a “Dear John” letter while they are in Basic Military Training (BMT) is a really terrible idea. I had had a lifetime of doing my best and not failing, but I had lost some of my cockiness at this point, and felt there was a real risk of being “washed out” and sent back home. Maybe I wasn’t military material after all! 

There was an obstacle course the women were required to try – once. It was really hard – massive walls to climb, water to swing across on a rope, etc. But it was called “The Confidence Course.” It was supposed to boost your confidence, as you were able to accomplish these tasks. Ha! That was a laugh! I couldn’t do any of it! So the letter from Joe only made matters worse – he was one more man who had left me, and I did a lot of crying.

But on the bright side, the best thing about BMT is that they did go out of their way to make sure trainees can go to church to boost morale. There were general Protestant chapel services and Catholic chapel services, along with specific denominational services at Lackland – far more choices than I’d ever run across in all my years of being an Air Force dependent. There were also supplementary meetings we could attend, including one called “Open Forum,” which was sort of a glorified youth group. And on Sunday night, the flight was scheduled to deep clean the dorm – but, you were excused if you went to church. Needless to say, I went to church as often as I could.

The first Sunday morning, a group of us in dress blues lined up and marched over to the general Protestant chapel service. Unfortunately, I found this service was theologically very watered down and non-offensive, pretty much just “God loves you.” But an Assembly of God church off base had a ministry to the Basic Trainees and sent a choir to Lackland, called “Silhouettes of the Master,” so I chose the AG service the next Sunday because it would probably be more like the church Joe went to at home, and I liked that. 

I loved hearing the choir and immersed myself in the worship. Lifting my hands to the Lord also lifted my spirits. I could tell the Lord was with us, and the Lord was for us. Afterwards, the choir mingled with the trainees to minister any way they could, and one young man in particular headed straight to me.

“Hi! I’m Eric!” he said, introducing himself, and I responded with my name. 

Immediately, another choir member named Bob introduced himself, telling me that he was also in the Air Force, but not as a trainee. He was “permanent party” at Lackland, which means he was actually stationed at the base.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” I said. “We’ve been instructed not to fraternize with the permanent party personnel at Lackland.”

That’s when a big grin appeared on Eric’s face. “OH!” he happily informed me. “ I’m not a permanent party at Lackland. I’m a permanent party at Kelly AFB – it’s right next door to Lackland.” 

“Okay! I guess that doesn’t apply to you, then!”

That was just what he wanted to hear. He quickly wrote down his phone number on something handy and presented it to me, in case I ever wanted to call. It seems he had been watching me from the stage, and he says it was love at first sight. 

Looking back at all this, I recently asked several friends who knew me back then to tell me what they had thought of me. I already knew what my brother Dan thought of me – he called me “Smat” which meant “Smart” and “Fat.” But I did get some input from others, who said I was:

• Smart

• Sweet

• Cheerful

• Friendly

• Beautiful

• Vivacious

But what did Eric see in me? What made him fall in love with me at first sight? He saw me worshipping God, and said I was rather glowy while I lifted my hands in praise to God. He said what set me apart was that I was joyful. Yeah, BMT isn’t the place to find a lot of joyful people, so that was unique. And the other thing that attracted him, he said, was that I was godly. This is what we were both looking for and we needed to hold on to that as firmly as we could, because godliness is rare.

Not that we were without sin! Au contraire! 

Eric said he had to contrive a way to see me again. So, we kind of dated, but it was rather a weird kind of dating. We trainees were strictly prohibited from being in any POV (privately-owned vehicle) and had to walk everywhere. We could never wear civilian clothes, nor leave the base. And our hours were not our own. Only a few times was there ever an opportunity to do what we wanted to do. 

Eric and I attended Open Forum night together, and neither of us remember what it was about. We saw each other at the Church of God services on Sunday nights, too. Someone actually had an accordion, and I volunteered to play it. Eric and I discovered we knew the same songs – the “Jesus Music” I had learned at home and at Calvary Chapel, even though he was from Indiana. We sang complicated duets at that service, like “Father, I Adore You.”

Eric saw my Basic Training Manual, which I always had on me. I had decorated the cover with little ink drawings and doodles during some of the more boring classes, and many of the drawings had something to do with Joe, back home. “That’s my boyfriend,” I told him sorrowfully. “He didn’t really like it that I joined the Air Force. And I just got a letter from him, saying he wanted to break off the relationship, and that I should stop thinking about boys and focus on Jesus.” 

Eric looked at Joe’s last name and remarked, “That’s okay, you’ll only have to change one letter.” Yeah, Joe’s last name was pretty close to Eric’s!

By this time, I was getting the idea that A1C Eric J. Haley was getting a little serious about me, but I really didn’t know him that well. So I thought I’d better find out at an accelerated pace! I came up with a list of questions and quizzes to find out who he was and what he believed, because what I wanted in any kind of mate was someone who would be God-honoring and faithful, but also my best friend. Any time we were together, he was submitted to rapid-fire interrogation to see if he could win the prize. The hardest questions I asked were about “where would you find” this and that in the Bible, concerning various key doctrines. 

He passed, but not with flying colors. Maybe I wouldn’t have either!  My questions, at age 18, weren’t as refined as they would have been now, at age 64.  Back then, they were more along the lines of “What must I do to be saved?” and “Have you ever been baptized in the Holy Spirit?” along with questions about the Second Coming of Christ and maybe some about his family and upbringing.  (Not sure about the latter.)

I did find out he got saved, baptized, and filled with the Holy Spirit at age 14 and had wanted to be a chaplain’s assistant, but he didn’t get that job, so he was working as an instrument specialist – altimeters, turn-and-bank indicators, and such. But I could tell that his heart was wrapped up in Jesus. Eric had been directly involved in the operations of a Christian coffeehouse in Lafayette, Indiana, called “Natural High,” had witnessed to his teachers in his school assignments, was on the editorial staff of a “Jesus People” newspaper, and had even been involved in a controversial attempt to hold a Jesus Music concert in a cornfield. Yeah – this was a pretty good resumé!

Once, on a Saturday, he knew I would have some time off, so he was really hoping he would be able to find me, but finding one particular person on that base, as they just happened to be walking around, was a longshot. So, praying that the Lord would help him, he drove his car around the base watching the faces of the multitudes of slick-sleeves milling around. Sure enough, he spied me on my way to the library, so he parked his car and we walked there together.

Meanwhile, in the dorm, there were nightly disturbances. There was this blond airman named Robyn, who said she was possessed by a demon. This was getting unnerving to many people because she would cry out, scratch herself, and be generally uncontrollable except that she told us she could make the demon leave by mindlessly chanting “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus …”

I knew I had to find an answer to the problem. The Youth Group at the Baptist Church back home had left me ill-prepared for a spiritual battle such as this one, but I thought Eric might have some advice, since their church did believe in encounters with the supernatural, and I knew he could pray. I had to see him, or at least call him.

You’ll remember, this was in the days before cell phones. But we had rows and rows of something called “phone booths” downstairs, outside, near the laundry room. For reference, watch an old Superman movie. He used phone booths as a changing room to expose his superhero costume. Remember that? Phone booths had phones in them, and these could be used whenever the TI authorized it.

I devised a plan. The next day, I volunteered to wash the laundry for the whole flight – 50 girls. Then, as the clothes were agitating, I was able to slip into the phone booth unobserved and call the number Eric had given me. That was a really risky business, especially since it didn’t do any good – he was working night shift and was sleeping during the day. I reached his roommate, who told Eric I sounded nice … 

Eric was really frustrated that I actually did call him and he wasn’t available. He told his roommate to “Back off! She’s mine!” We never were successful at solving the problem with Airman Robyn, but Eric, for sure, was starting to see God’s hand in everything.

In the end, Basic Training really is a very short period of time: thirty days of training in only six weeks, and when you are finished, you graduate a different person. It’s similar to getting a perm – the first chemical breaks down the structure of your hair. Then you make the hair conform to curlers and finally neutralize the first chemical. Going forward, you have curly hair. In BMT, upon graduation, you are again an important person, confident and capable, a member of the greatest airborne fighting force in the world. If you make it through, pass your tests, and don't crack, you are ready to serve your country. 

Tech Sergeant Sprecker, our fireball of a T.I. (Training Instructor), taught us how to salute, report for duty, and walk smartly in our low quarter shoes so that the click of our heels echoed across the room. We did not slink quietly past her office door. She raced alongside us as we ran the mile-and-a-half, yelling at us not to stop. And yet, in the final days of Basic Training, after all the yelling, TSgt Sprecker brought her puppy in to show us, and we all cuddled him. She was human!

In Basic Training, you are issued all your “stuff,” like various uniforms, a field jacket, a raincoat, your hat, a purse, and a duffel bag. And then you learn exactly how to take care of it, how to fold it or hang it up, and even how to space your hangers. You may not think it is important to fold your underwear, but if you do, you may have been in the military.

At night, we used a flashlight we nicknamed the “Lackland Laser” to see where we were going. It had a tapered yellow plastic tube on the end which made it look like a sawed-off Star Wars lightsaber – before Star Wars was ever introduced into the American way of life. Eric said he could always tell when I was coming, even in the dark, because of a certain swing to my Lackland Laser when I walked.

Just before graduation, Eric began thinking about what would become of our newly-begun relationship. He decided to fast about it and to pray that I would stay longer because he needed more time. Fifty members of my flight graduated. (I think so – it may be that a few of them washed out.) But only three of us didn’t have orders the day after graduation, including me. Those of us who remained were POTs (post-training), and got odd jobs during our extended stay. We had to move our stuff to a different barracks. During that time, we were able to do things like change into our civies (civilian clothes), ride in a POV, and leave the base during our time off. 

Eric was ecstatic! The prayer of faith worked! I believe I was only there a week or ten days, but it was long enough. We saw each other about every time I was off work. 

And we drove together to one of his favorite places – the top of the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio – and viewed the city together. He told me he was going to ask me to marry him.

Finally my orders came, and with them, the time came to say good-bye. I boarded a blue bus and headed for Sheppard AFB, also in Texas, where my tech school would be. In seven short weeks, the Air Force would turn me into a Programming Specialist. Eric and I exchanged addresses and he said he would come to see me at Sheppard.

Choosing a Career: The U.S. Air Force

When you are young, adults find amusement in asking, “What do you want to do (or be) when you grow up?” Often, the erratic path of childhood changes directions several times before you arrive at any kind of destination. What follows is the process that the Lord used to get me where He wanted me to be.

This photo was taken for inclusion in a military magazine but was wholly posed. The monitor was new. I passed for someone who could type. The captain and the two senior NCO’s in my office were pretending there was anything of substance to see on the screen.

When I was very young, one of my favorite Christmas presents was a manual typewriter. My parents loved me!  Mom put this picture in my baby book and said it was Christmas ‘62, so that would make me 6 years old:

I took typing in my freshman year of high school and the QWERTY keyboard became a natural extension of my hands in the same way piano keys become an extension of a well-trained pianist. I still put two spaces after a period and after a colon, and two hyphens make one dash. Have you ever done the math it takes to type a nicely-centered table in the middle of a letter? I have, although, admittedly, it’s been a while!

The difference between back then and now is that when you were typing, it was serious business – you did not make a mistake and simply backspace to get rid of the evidence, or drag and drop to move sentences around. To make three copies, you needed carbon paper between the sheets. That’s what “CC:” means – “carbon copy.” Each time you messed up, you would have to use an ink eraser to rub out the error all three times. You had to gain speed, be accurate, and hit each key with equal fervor so all the letters looked the same.

I was eight years old when our family moved to the Philippines. We lived off base in a real house because we couldn’t move our trailer there. The house had large fans and a red floor – specially waxed with a mosquito repellant. The garbage collection was done with an open wagon pulled down the dirt road by a carabao. It was so hot, we had to wake up very early in the morning to go to school, and get home before the hottest part of the day. 

We took a bus to Wurtsmith School on Clark AFB, where our classrooms were in rounded WWII quonset huts. One time a kid found an unexploded bomb on the playground. Our school milk program used reconstituted dry milk and it tasted very terrible. We had a choice between that and chocolate milk, and every kid chose chocolate. 

One day, my parents took us to the American Embassy in the Philippines. I have no idea why we needed to go there, but when I stepped inside, I gasped. It was air conditioned! There were people in American clothes speaking English, and it was just like being back home. We ate lunch in the cafeteria, and the fare included real ice cream! And the secretaries were tapping out neat letters on their typewriters and hurrying back and forth, doing important things.

What did I want to do when I grew up? Be a secretary. And not just any secretary, but one in an American Embassy.

Also, in the Philippines, I met my most favorite teacher, one Miss Gottman. I thought she was wonderful, so I would hang around her desk and talk with her (okay, bother her). 

She taught her pupils Creative Writing, and my favorite assignment was to write a story with the title: “One Day When I Was Walking Backwards in the Park, I Bumped Into an Alligator.” Maybe I could be a writer! It certainly helped that when I left the Philippines, Miss Gottman became my penpal. She still is, and loves to point out how much I have always loved to talk.

Mr. Tretheway, my Math teacher in eighth grade, thought I should be a mathematician. I did like Math, but I didn’t think being a mathematician sounded very amusing.

In Girl Scouts, I applied for a National Girl Scout Opportunity called “Career Preview,” where I could investigate theatre in New York City. I had been impressed with the Covenant Players, a Christian repertory group that performed at the Spiritual Life Conference our family attended in 1971 and conducted workshops, so I thought I would be happy with a career in Christian theatre. (Here’s me at the Spiritual Life Conference, in a Charlie Brown style skit.)

I was selected for the Girl Scout Opportunity, and with a little fundraising activity, during the summer of ’72, I was on my way.

The trip was awesome, or maybe I should say, “Groovy!” I saw the Metropolitan Opera House, a Gilbert & Sullivan’s Mikado off-Broadway, and Jesus Christ, Superstar on Broadway. When I came back, I organized and executed a project working with a Brownie troop on a play they wrote themselves, since they had dug into their treasury and contributed $3.00 towards my trip.

My first real job was working in Aunt Jackie’s Hawaiian Shoppe when I was 16, where we sold Hawaiian clothes and made costuming for various Polynesian dance groups. We also arranged and organized fashion shows, and once, Jackie even brought me to a luau so we could see our costumes in use in a dance program. I was an asset to Jackie because my skin color and long brown hair made me look like an islander. Looking back, I guess I am – just not Polynesian.

My high school counselor thought I should go to UCLA after graduation. After all, anybody who graduated as a class salutatorian should get scholarships and move on to the university, right? But I wasn’t thrilled about being only one out of a great number of students. And anyway, what did I want to do with my life? And did I need to go to UCLA to learn it?

I did take the ACT test. And there was a part of the test that was more than just knowledge regurgitation. That was more of an interest survey – what kind of work was I suitable for, based on my personality?

At that time, I was experiencing one of my low points. I had decided I just wanted to be a computer programmer because people would hurt you, and I thought I could avoid people by just hanging out with computers all day. So when I took the test, I answered all the questions accordingly – no people! It turned out that my personality placed me way out in left field – where there were no jobs! Not getting along with people is a contraindication for getting any kind of job, anywhere.

Finally, my dad stepped in and proposed something I had never thought about: Join the Air Force with a guaranteed job, and go to college later. I would get G.I. Bill benefits which included a free college education. There was a delayed enlistment program, which meant I could sign up early, spend the summer after graduation being lazy, and then leave for Basic Training after my 18th birthday in October or November. 

That sounded great! As a military brat, I had loved living near the flight line. There’s nothing like seeing our great planes in the air. I always felt safe and secure when I heard their roar. My parents had both served in the Civil Air Patrol as well, and our family used to go on searches together when I was little. 

My mother cooked breakfast in our little vacation trailer for the cadets on their trips. I had great memories.

I took the Air Force aptitude test (ASVAB) and found out I scored a little too low in mechanics for a few jobs, but high enough for a guaranteed job in Computer Programming. That was cool because, though the high school in Arizona had a computer, Artesia had none. This was a way I could actually reach my goal!

I did it. I got the tee-shirt before I even graduated. (“Do It In the Sky”) Here’s a news clipping from one of the local papers, when I received the High School’s Senior Award (the Conestoga Award) for Social Studies, wearing my promotional tee-shirt.

Then I spent the summer riding everywhere on my bike, and passed the time pushing carts in the parking lot of Costco, where Joe (my boyfriend) worked. The plan was that I would leave in November.

I told Joe about the Air Force, and that my mom had said, “If he’s really the right one, he’ll wait for you.” He was a little skeptical of that, but I was sure of it. We would write letters – it would be fine. He wasn’t interested in the Air Force at all – he thought I should stay in California because he wanted to minister to the Hispanics in the area. So, though it was fun to gaze at the stars together and talk about how much we loved each other, our goals were a bit different. 

Just after my 18th birthday, October 1, 1974, I got a call from my Air Force recruiter. He said there was an emergency opening for someone in my guaranteed job. Could I leave in October instead of November? 

“How soon do you mean?”

“October 7.”

“Can I pray about it?” 

“Sure!”

I hung up the phone and started by telling my mom. But by the time I had communicated this proposal to her, the phone rang again.

“Have you finished praying yet?”

This time, I didn’t hang up on him, but I did have some hurried discussion with my mom. The conclusion was, there was really no good reason to stay. So I was hurtled into my Air Force career, as soon as I could get the items on my list packed, including stamps, several new pairs of underwear, and film for my camera. Then I spent the whole weekend eating nothing but bananas so I could lose a couple of pounds and not be over the 125-pound weight limit.

Six days after my 18th birthday, after some hasty good-byes, I left for Basic Military Training at Lackland AFB, Texas, thus filling the emergency opening. Early Monday morning, with a group of 40 or 50 other recruits, I took the oath, said, “So help me God,” and boarded the plane.

The Law, Self-Love, and Eternal Life, Part 2 : Morning Glory

 Around the 1980’s, we started to see a philosophy creep into our society, and I believe it started in the schools. We started hearing about “The Me Generation.” People needed to, so they said, “feel good about themselves.” As a result, we became a more pampered culture, more egocentric. How that could make us better humans was yet to be seen. I would say the experiment hasn’t turned out very well.

Reminder: This chapter is mostly written to my fellow-believers in Jesus Christ. But even if you don’t fit that description, please read this post anyway, and all the way to the end. There’s something there for you.

Who Am I, Then?

This is a morning glory – a small flower among many, that is here today and gone tomorrow. As long as the sun is up, it is beautiful, but when the sun goes away, it’s finished. This particular species is a field bindweed. By itself, it’s not very impressive, and by the name, you can tell it’s classified as a weed, but with many others in the field, it sure is beautiful!

The main difference between my life now, and what I thought it was even five years ago, is that I’m able to better understand that some of what I did was caused by other people. That realization doesn’t let me completely off the hook. Whatever is my responsibility, needs to be dealt with – even if I become aware of it and convicted of it decades later.

Just this year (2020), decades after my experiences with Grandpa, I had another interaction with my biological brother Dan (alias “Junior”). After discussing things with my real brother, I had decided to revisit my relationship with Dan, which had been strained for many years. Was it possible to renew diplomatic relations with him? Had he grown up yet?

In my letter, written by my own hand, I apologized for anything I could think of that could have made him so eternally mad at me. 

What I got in response was a tirade in which he blamed me for everything wrong in the lives of himself and our sister Rennie: bad relationships, marriages gone sour, and every wrong choice that either of them had ever made. 

There was absolutely no mercy. I experienced a crushing guilt that left me feeling like I could not breathe. But I also felt in those moments as if I were experiencing just a tiny particle of how Jesus must have felt when the load of guilt and shame for the entire world, for all of history, was laid upon His shoulders. I sobbed for what seemed like hours – who knows, it might have been hours!

But when I finally remembered that all my sins were already forgiven, I refused to accept that guilt. It was not mine to bear. Jesus, too, was completely innocent, but He took on all of our guilt and shame, willingly. He died for me and my sins, and He died for my sister’s and my brother’s sins too. I’ve received that forgiveness, and I belong to Jesus.

With that in mind, I am totally aware that we all need encouragement. When I was going through this, others who are close to me were able to remind me of the promises in God’s Word for the believer in Christ.

Here’s the thing: We don’t need to love ourselves more, we need to believe God more. There’s a song I like, “Who You Say I Am,” because it has so many thoughts directly based on the Scriptures.

Yes! We can believe what He says about us because that’s 150% accurate.

Just take a look at these marvelous verses from Romans 8. Pretend this is my New King James Bible. I’m going to mark it up the way I would in my Bible, except that should you actually see my Bible, you would also see many tiny notes in the margins, arrows to connect my thoughts, and words circled. You’ll notice I took out my handy-dandy Bible Highlighter for the last two verses. These are critical!

1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”

16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

17 and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.

34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,

39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is only a small fraction of the truth about who we are in Christ. Here’s more – we are God’s creation, made in His own image, loved with an everlasting love, redeemed by Christ’s sacrifice, set apart for good works, purified and made holy to be the Bride of Christ.

If you believe in Jesus Christ, truly, the best is yet to come!

The New Commandment

Now here’s the rest of the story. Besides clarifying the Old Testament commandment for the lawyer about who is our neighbor, Jesus gave His disciples a brand new commandment the evening of the Last Supper. What do you think – is it easier or harder? How shall we then love?

“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” 

 ~John 13:34-35

Both Paul (Ephesians 5:28-29) and Jesus are leading us to the higher truth that we should not be living an egocentric life, focused on ourselves. We must love others: to make sure that they are also fed and their needs met. All their needs. To get you started, think about your own needs, and how you can help meet those needs for others.

This is what motivates the Believer to perform those acts of charity – the thought of “If I were in his shoes, what would I need?” In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:28-37), it was clear that the victim of the robbery needed immediate emergency healthcare, lodging, a good meal, and some clothing. What’s more, he was going to need them over an extended period of time. The Samaritan was able to meet those needs. He was loving his neighbor as himself. And that’s what the verse really means. 

“Father, I am like that morning glory, small and fragile, but not overlooked. You have given meaning and purpose to my life. Though my stay on earth may be brief, let my life give glory and joy to the Giver of Life, the Son, and may I be focused on Him and the Light He gives.

“Now let us, your disciples, go forth to serve, loving one another as You have loved us, a sacrificial kind of love. We will need your Holy Spirit to give us the wherewithal to do that and to follow in Your footsteps.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.” 

What If I Still Really Do Hate Myself?

Do you ever get those junk mail ads that you open, skim, briefly reflect on how many innocent trees went into the making of all this promotional stuff, and then start to toss into the “circular file,” only to spy a small paper that says, “ONLY OPEN THIS IF YOU’VE DECIDED NOT TO BUY”? Well, that’s what this is.

If you believe you really do hate yourself, someone has you believing you have no value. Don’t believe it! There is an enemy of mankind, Satan, who has come to steal, kill, and destroy. He is called the Father of Lies, and he is lying to you. Speaking of the devil, Jesus says in John 8:44:

“He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” ~John 8:44

Several years ago, I went to a Women’s Retreat at Turkey Run State Park. The organizers of the retreat had wisely allowed time for personal reflection -- to go somewhere and be alone with God for a while. As I did so, many things ran through my mind, thoughts of comfort and peace.  And then the Lord spoke to me. It was a gentle voice, one that could not have been heard in a noisy place, but it was plain as day out here in the woods. He spoke my name, and gave it meaning.

You must understand that, for most of my life, I had disliked my name. Firstly, it was a nickname, and people always wanted to know what my “real name” was. But secondly, I didn’t like the “real name” of “Margaret,” which is my mother’s name. It sounds harsh. There’s nothing nice about the way it sounds. Most of the time, if I signed a personal letter, I would use a pseudonym, or simply, “me.” To top it off, there are only a few things you can do with “Margie,” and Dan had done them all – you can shorten it to “Marge” which rhymes with “Large” and “Barge.” Or you can expand it to “Margarine,” which actually was better (but not butter).

But then the Lord spoke my name, and when He did, it sounded beautiful and amazing. There was no harshness, no meaninglessness. I thought I could really like that name if I always heard it spoken so lovingly. If you understand vocal music, you can understand the difference in effect between singing “R,” (which sounds growly) and singing an open-throated “AHHH”. That’s something like what I heard. 

But there was more. The Lord said to me, “I’m giving you a new name. You are Pearl.” 

Pearl? At first I wasn’t sure that was any better, because that was the name of my grandpa’s wife.  But the name itself is what was important, not other people I knew who also had the name.  It is the meaning of “Margaret.” And spoken by the Lord to me, in that woods, it was a love song. I know that in the Book of Revelation, Jesus speaks of those who overcome getting a new name, but I felt like I was getting mine early. God called me a bright, iridescent pearl. I was overcome, and the tears rolled down my face. 

I didn’t tell many people at the time. Did you ever hear, “Yeah, that’s my name, don’t wear it out!” I kind of felt that way. And I didn’t know what people would think if I told them I heard God talking to me out in the woods. So it was my secret, a beautiful, encouraging secret.

There’s a parable Jesus told in Matthew 13 about a merchant who found a pearl of great price and sold all that he had to purchase it. That’s what Jesus did for me. And that’s what Jesus did for you. There is no doubt that each of us, individually, matter so much to Jesus, that He died on a cross and gave everything he had to purchase us, so that we would belong to Him. He counts us as His own personal treasure.

And He wants us in His family!

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. ~John 1:12-13

Each of us needs to believe in Jesus, the Son of God, and receive Him into our heart. Then, we can be a child of God, and we will inherit all those promises I marked up in my New King James Bible earlier. There are no exceptions – this is God’s Peace Plan, and you can be a part of it.

Would you like to be my real brother or sister? You can do that now. Just ask!