Prayer Paves the Way

I LOOKED ACROSS THE length of the passenger railway dining car, and with the sounds of clattering dishes in the background, I was momentarily stunned. I was bewildered and simultaneously certain that the face I was starting at, which was also staring back at me, was the woman I called mother. Why would she be on this train? I pondered on many reasons but found none.

The year was 1955. I had fled my chaotic home in St. Louis more than two years before and enrolled at Missouri State University in Columbia. Angry with the world, I skipped courses, wasted hours upon hours, and made it a point to let everyone know that I didn’t like the people, didn’t enjoy the classes, and was living life on my own terms: carefree and unconcerned!

The truth is, attending the state university in Columbia, Missouri, was not my first escape.

Two years before, my mother had given me an ultimatum.

I was embarrassed and angry because I had been stricken with polio at the tender age of fourteen during the peak of its outbreak, and I was emotionally broken by my parent’s divorce, which proved fodder for the local newspaper. I didn’t have the words to justify or the courage to express my feelings, but I certainly had actions that unquestionably conveyed my emotions. Quite literally, I was impossible to live with. Rules were not my thing.

Much like my father, I was a great storyteller. My only challenge was that my infinite imagination often did not resemble truth. My mother delivered the final blow when she said, “If you don’t want to be part of this family, you can go.”

Wait. What? Go? Where would I go?

As a child of divorce, I had an option. I went to live with my father and his new wife. That would teach my mother how determined her daughter was! That lasted for about a year, and to everyone’s great relief, they said goodbye as I headed to Columbia, Missouri, to become a freshman at the state university. I wanted out of town, and I thought I wanted out of my family, and they were more than happy to oblige.

Now more than two years later, without much to show for my time at the state university and knowing that I was not going to be invited to return the following year, I made up a new lie. Visiting my family on a short break, I announced that I had been accepted at Stanford University in California. Yes, I was Stanford bound!

Shortly after I arrived in California, I returned the car that I arrived in, and then abruptly and without warning, all my lies, misdeeds, and baseless actions came to a roaring head. Here I am. What am I going to do? I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have money. I certainly hadn’t been accepted at Stanford, and in approximately one week, I would be homeless. The cold, hard reality of the life I had created was beginning to set in. I was scared and very alone.

For the first time in my young life, I was confronted by the consequences of my actions, and I knew I had to face the truth. With any luck, my mother, who I knew was out of town, wouldn’t return home for weeks. Then I saw her. I panicked. My mother was sitting before me. She was on my train!

Was my life of lies, deception, and fleeing as quickly as I could away from God about to be exposed right now? Had I gotten to the end of my string of lies?