Note: This story is a sequel to Yerhired, so if you haven’t read that story,
read it before you read this one.
by Gwen McMath
Believe it or not, Simon and Garfunkel did not write the title of my story, it came into existence long before Simon and Garfunkel did, it comes from the Old Testament book called Ecclesiastes, Chapter Three:
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose unto heaven.
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace,
I think to get a good concept of this scripture I must add verse eleven, “God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
If you are like me, you always need a little help interpreting passages from the Bible which is why I have The Life Application Bible which has the scriptures at the top of the page and the interpretation at the bottom. I am going to borrow part of their interpretation of these scriptures so it will help you and I know where I am coming from as I write this story. I thought of this scripture and song immediately as I began to think about writing this portion of my life. This small segment of my life it is not a life changing portion, but it is a very important slice because it contains the baby years of Vanessa’s life. It might seem unimportant to you but it is very important to my mother heart. Why? Because when I look back at this time in my life I realize how much God was there and gave me a special time with Vanessa when she was little. Back to Ecclesiastes, and this portion of scripture that was written by King Solomon himself. Solomon’s point in this section is that God has a plan for all people. Thus he provides cycles of life, each with its work for us to do. Although we may face problems that seem to contradict God’s plan, these should not be barriers to believing in him, but rather opportunities to discover that, without God, life’s problems have no lasting solutions. The secret to peace with God is to discover, accept, and appreciate God’s perfect timing. The danger is to doubt or resent God’s timing. When we read that “”God has set eternity in the hearts of men” this means that we can never be completely satisfied with earthly pleasures and pursuits. This is why I go back, look, and remember my past. Not to think it more important than the present but to appreciate what God has done in every phase of my life. Keep these things in mind as we go back to 1978-80 to the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas to Universal City, Texas and my life during this time.
During the time we lived in Edinburg, Texas we had a very good friend from college named Anne Winton who lived in San Antonio, Texas. She was a beautiful, vivacious red-head and we all loved her. She was always cracking jokes and having fun. Her roommate at her dorm was Cheryl Belew, who had come to know the Lord in our prayer group, and like the rest of us was a little overzealous. She was always asking Anne to come to our prayer meeting and Anne was always telling her “no”. One afternoon after Cheryl had again invited Anne to prayer meeting, Anne lay down on her bed and fell asleep. She had a dream that a hay wagon was coming by the dorm with all her friends on it and she asked them to stop and let her go with them. They stopped but no matter how hard she tried she could not get on the hay wagon. She woke up and prayed and said, “Lord, does this have any thing to do with you?” She said the Lord spoke to her and said: “I have come by for you over and over again, it is time for you to make a decision about your relationship with me.” That night she came to prayer meeting and gave her life to the Lord.
Anne came to know the Lord but flunked out of school so that is how she ended up in San Antonio living with her parents until she could regroup. Charley and I had visited Anne and her family a few times because my husband Charley loved the city of San Antonio and its history. Anne’s family were very gracious to us even though they were not excited about Anne’s new life, they preferred her before she got saved. Anne’s father was a military man and was head of security over Randolph Air Force Base and Anne’s mother worked for Judson Independent School District. One of my favorite stories about Anne and her dad was when Anne was in high school and went to a wild party with her classmates on base one night. The security police came, and you guessed it, Anne came face to face with her dad. He was so mad at her that he took off his belt and made her walk in front of him all the way home in front of her friends while he popped her on the bottom with each step! When Anne’s father retired from the Air Force, he became an elementary school teacher. Can you imagine how scared his students were of him? He used to tell us how when he taught fifth grade the kids all thought they were cool because they had transistor radios with earplugs and when they were supposed to be working they would sneak the ear plugs in and listen to music. Well, he got tired of taking them up and putting them in his desk real quick, so he came up behind the culprit, jerked the radio out of his ear and pocket, and stomped on it with his shoe until it was in a million pieces, then threw it in the trash! No more problems with radios. Of course, this could never happen today!
Anne’s mom came in one evening while we were visiting and told Charley that there was an opening at Judson High School for a head of the special education department for high school. Charley was interested and applied for the job and that is how we ended up in Universal City for the next three years. It was a very challenging job for Charley because he was still so young and good-looking. A very wise principal told him to keep a desk between him and any student at all times and this turned out to be great advice. Kind of like Billy Graham’s policy with women, if he rode in the car alone with one, he would make her ride in the back seat! Even though Charley received a small stipend for being head of the department we had just had our first baby, Vanessa, and I was going to stay at home with her instead of teach, which was great in theory, but in reality we learned quite quickly that we couldn’t live on one teacher’s salary. Charley did anything he could find to supplement our income from painting to having a paper route.
Shortly after we moved to San Antonio, Anne’s old dorm roommate and our good friend Cheryl Belew moved to San Antonio. We were so pleased to have her around again. She was beautiful, intelligent, and still looking for God’s direction for her life. During her time in San Antonio, she was having a direction crisis in her life and ended up working at a car rental agency at the airport. After that she began working for a short time for Child Protective Services placing babies into foster homes. Many times she would bring babies by my house to pray for them before she placed them in a foster home. Eventually, she went to Virginia and got a Master’s Degree in Communications and got a job as an interviewer on the 700 Club with Pat Robertson. She now lives in Louisiana with her husband Rick and teaches speech on the college level.
I, on the other hand, was enjoying life immensely even though we didn’t have much money. I did not know very much about babies (I had not even held many before I had one) and I didn’t have much confidence in my ability. But I learned by trial and error and eventually spent my days walking the neighborhood with Vanessa in the mornings and pursuing other things while she slept in the afternoons. I had time to enjoy every phase of her babyhood and toddler stage. We took her with us everywhere we went from walking around downtown San Antonio with her in a backpack to taking her to Guadalajara, Mexico by both plane and car (Charley’s parents lived there). I remember a trip to Guadalajara by car that was particularly difficult. We drove all day on a Saturday and when we got to a hotel I locked the keys in the trunk. You haven’t lived until you have been in a foreign country trying to explain this to a mechanic in broken Spanish. We couldn’t get into the trunk that night so we had no bed for Vanessa or diapers until the next day. She cried all night and I think we did too! We finally got the keys out through the backseat the next day but it was quite an ordeal! Now in my older age I wouldn’t even think of taking a young child to Mexico, but times were different then and I am sure Charley’s parents enjoyed the time with Vanessa.
Our home in Universal City was used a lot for hospitality. Many of Charley’s parent’s friends, who they were missionaries with, would come through San Antonio on the way to Guadalajara and stay with us. Charley’s dad had to have surgery during this time, and they stayed with us until he got well. San Antonio was closer to my parents in Dallas, Texas so we got to see them more while we lived in San Antonio. I remember a time when there was a yearly art show in San Antonio and my sister, Shirley, and her friend Rhonda Elkins, had just begun to paint so they came down to San Antonio to make their fortune on fine art. They didn’t sell one of their paintings! I felt so sorry for them. But they persevered and continued to paint and now I am proud to say that both of them have won numerous awards for painting and have sold all they would want to. Don’t give up on your dreams!
During this time of being a stay at home mom in order to get some time with grown-ups instead of children I volunteered one evening a week at a downtown hospital. I tried to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit with patients so one day I went in a young mans room and felt I should talk with him. He told me he was in the hospital for tests because of headaches. I began to talk to him and his girlfriend about how much God loved them and wanted to help them with their situation when someone came in the room. I quickly retreated and kicked myself all the way down the hall for being so outspoken and imagining that they thought I was a real nut job. After a while, someone paged me over the intercom and asked me to go back to the young mans room. By this time I was certain I was going to get fired from my volunteer job! So I went back to the room with much fear and trembling. The young man greeted me with a smile and said, “We didn’t get to finish our conversation, would you pray for me?” I did and he left the hospital the next day. Another time I ran into a girl in the hospital lobby that was telling me this story about needing help—her husband had abused her and she didn’t have anywhere to stay, etc. Normally I would have believed her and taken her home with me but for some reason I hesitated. I left her there in the lobby and the next morning when I turned on the news imagine my surprise to learn she had tried to set fire to the hospital. Thank God I had not taken her home with me!
So, as you can see, I led a very normal, everyday life while I lived in Universal City. It was a very quiet life compared to the one I had lived in Commerce and Universal City, Texas. We did not have the big weekly prayer meetings we had had before. I could have been dissatisfied and complained that my life was not spiritually exciting enough because I was not in the limelight. I see a lot of Christians always wanting to be in leadership positions in churches or groups and I know from experience that if we are to do all God wants us to do we have to be content to be in the background at times doing what some feel are menial jobs like raising children or cleaning the toilets at home. I think the Apostle Paul said it best in Philippians 4:12 when he said, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” Paul was content because he could see life from God’s point of view. That is what I want to convey with this story and the people in it. Paul focused on what he was supposed to do, not what he felt he should have. Paul had his priorities straight and he was grateful for everything God had given him. That’s what I want to do. Paul had detached himself from the non-essentials so that he could concentrate on the eternal. Often the desire for more or better possessions is really a longing to fill an empty place in a person’s life.
I have found through reviewing my life that just as Ecclesiastes talks about, I have lived through many joys as well as sorrows in my life. I also feel I am learning to be content where I find myself, whether it is a time of plenty or of little. Hopefully I can review the past and learn from it but live in the present and glean all I can from each day that has been given to me.