The Way He Chose

As the rickety old van bumped along the narrow, pot-hold highway, I found myself wondering if perhaps mother was right. Maybe I had lost all my senses as she so vividly proclaimed to take David  away from his friends and school and set out for central Mexico and a whole new lifestyle. David, at fourteen was willing enough. He was always in favor of an adventure and that’s how he looked at the change. But try as I might, I couldn’t shake the negative attack from my mind. Her words kept piercing my thoughts like little poison, darts.

“You are crazy to go to Mexico and take David,” she had shouted.

“Mother, we are going to help the people, to do God’s work and God will take care of us,” I replied, knowing it was useless to try to explain.

“Well, I still say you’ll get you both killed or starve to death. You better stay home where you belong!”

 Boy, did she ever know how to get to me. I had long ago come to understand that my mother would never accept the radical changes in my life since I had surrendered it 100% to God in 1972. The fact that I was forty didn’t matter nor that I had managed to raise my four children alone, halfway across the nation from her watchful eye. At least David was almost grown and he was the youngest. But Mother always knew what was best for me and made no bones about trying to make me see that I had gone off the deep end with this new religion as she called it. Usually, when I was out of earshot my confidence would return but today was different. The decision to move to Tampico hadn’t come easy for me and her words had cut deep into the wisdom behind that decision.

     David shifted his position slightly as the wheel of the van hit a large pothole causing a jolt. It was impossible to miss them all. He lay slouched back against the seat, his Indiana Jones hat pulled down over his eyes, trying to nap. The old felt hat had once belonged to my dad. David had steamed it, reshaped the brim and added a band of rattlesnake hide that he and his brother, Paul, had skinned out and preserved from a big, Texas rattler. If he had any qualms about the move, they were well hidden. So as we continued to jostle along toward our new home, I was left alone with my thoughts.  The long hassle at the border had eaten away much of our day so I pressed a bit harder on the accelerator. Barring any trouble we would make Tampico before sundown.  The thought of being on this isolated road after dark didn’t appeal to me in the least. Besides, if we were attacked or killed by outlaws my mother could say “I told you so.”                                                                                                                                                                                       

           Our old International Travel-all was packed to the hilt. Some of it was housekeeping supplies, some personal things and some food and clothing for the poor around Tampico. At the border after unpacking and repacking I had to pay a guard $10 to get us on the road again. Using those wooden ammunition crates I had picked up at the Army surplus store had definitely been a mistake. Naturally they were packed in the bottom of the van and the guards wanted to see inside them.

“How much farther now?” David asked, as he lifted the brim of his hat for a look around.

“I’m not sure. Why don’t you check the map?” I replied. After studying the map briefly, David noted that Ciudad Victoria was next on our route and Tampico should be about three more hours down the road .  Folding the map haphazardly, he shoved it on to the dash, then as if reading my mind, he looked over at me and said,” Don’t worry Mom. It’ll work out for us.”

     Knowing that David was relaxed helped me to loosen up a bit. He was right of course. Things had always worked out for us. Troubles seemed to follow me around like fleas on a hound dog but somehow things always worked out. Over and over again, God had proved to me that whenever I encountered trouble, he was always there with a way out if I kept my head enough to look for his leading. That seemed to be the hard part. My life had been a lot like a jungle maze and behind every tree lurked a new danger, a new challenge to my wits. But from the many tough experiences ,I had learned a lot about faith. God had shown me that faith and fear are exact opposites and one cancels out the other. Sadly enough, I had never learned to trust God until I was past thirty. I grew up believing in God. At church we saying about trust, the preacher preached about trust but I never saw a lot of it in action when it got right down to it.

     As my mind wandered back over the years I realized how different my life had been to what I had always dreamed about as a young girl growing up. During the very early years of my life the family moved around a lot but we settled on a small farm in north central Texas when I was twelve and stayed in the area until I graduated from high school. I had breezed through school keeping an “A” average with very little effort. School work just always came easy for me. Many of my teachers encouraged me to go to college after high school. I even decided to make college plans when a wealthy aunt offered to pay my tuition to Abilene Christian College. But secretly all I ever really wanted was a home, a loving husband, lots of children, a flower garden and a quiet life.

     There were seven children in my family and I was number six. My oldest sister, Wanda, was married before I was born and my parents were more like grandparents than a mother and father to me. Six years before I came along, my dad had a nervous breakdown. He lost his health and the family business. After that we were always poor but as I remember it we didn’t have such a bad life. We wore some hand-me-down clothing, raised our own chickens and grew most of our vegetables on our rented farm. Mother was good at managing Dad’s partial disability check from an old WW1 injury and Dad worked odd jobs occasionally. Dad was red headed, of Scotch Irish descent and witty with a sense of humor. Mother was dark-haired, mostly English descent, and nearly always serious. I grew up with my older sister Bobbie and my younger sister Kay. Wanda had died tragically of cancer when I was nine, leaving behind a husband and four-year-old son, Ronnie. My brother, Kenneth, was killed in an auto accident on Christmas eve when I was ten, the victim of a drunk driver. My brother, T. W. and sister, Bettie, were grown and living away from home. Bobbie and Kay were close and did all the young girl things together but for the most part, I was a loner, a thinker and a dreamer. Being overly sensitive, I remember crying at the drop of a hat. Since people often said and did things that hurt my feelings, it made sense to me to stay away from them as much as possible and so I did. My favorite pastime was walking around the farm with my collie dog or climbing into the hayloft with a good book. I can still remember the fresh smell of the newly plowed earth, while walking down the rows of corn in the spring.