Not My Will and The Light in My Window (28 page)

The two women sat in thoughtful silence for a moment, then Eleanor went on. “But, oh, Mother, I wish you could know old Dr. Cortland! He is impractical, and sometimes his absence of mind is amusing, but
he
gives real spiritual help.
He
knows where power comes from. He depends entirely on the Lord’s leading. Philip King—well, he acts first, then expects the Lord to ratify his work.”

Mother wove the needle in and out of the sock in her hand. Then she spoke slowly. “I’ve never seen Philip King, but I know he has been acclaimed for his work among young people. What you say disappoints me greatly, for our young people today need their hearts and lives really transformed by the Spirit, and He cannot work through one who is not yielded to Him. Eleanor, Philip King needs prayer. We must pray that God will deal with him to stir his heart and cleanse it completely of self.”

“Mother, I know that if you pray for him, he will be helped,” said Eleanor impetuously. “And while you are remembering him, I wish you would pray for his wife’s
health. She is beginning to seem like a sister to me—but I fear for her life sometimes. She has one of the sweetest dispositions I have known, and all her trouble and pain haven’t embittered her one bit. I don’t blame Dr. King for adoring her. She is adorable! But she is dangerously ill.”

“I will pray for her too,” promised Mother Stewart with a look of faith on her face, which testified to many experiences with a Lord who answers prayer in a mighty way. “I am sure the Lord is using you to help both of them. Sometimes God uses sharp tools to shape the lives He wants to use, but we can trust His hand. If he has chosen Philip King for a special task, He will prepare him.”

“You’re such a comfort, Mother,” said Eleanor warmly. “Oh, I want to tell you one more thing about Philip King, and then we’ll change the subject. Did I tell you that I have recognized him at last?”

“Recognized him?” repeated Mother Stewart, puzzled.

“Yes,” replied Eleanor. “Remember that I told you about the church service Chad and I attended together the last Sunday before he left me? When the preacher delivered such a powerful sermon on ‘The Bond Servant of Jesus Christ’? Well, that preacher was Philip King.”

“How does it happen that you didn’t recognize him before?” asked Mother in surprise.

“He has changed so much,” replied Eleanor. “He is thinner and older-looking, and that newly acquired lock of white hair has changed his appearance. But one Sunday at the institute he preached that same sermon. I was shocked when I realized it all. But the thing that hurts, Mother, is that one who has the gift of persuasion as he has does not live what he preaches. He isn’t yielded to Christ! He follows Philip King’s will, not God’s!” Eleanor
paused for breath after this outburst, then added anticlimactically, “No wonder his baby is stubborn! He came by it naturally.”

“My dear, Bethel College surely needs our prayers,” said Mother Stewart, deeply moved. “That place was born in prayer and has been nurtured by the Spirit, and it has done a powerful work for God. Man’s wisdom must not crowd out the Spirit now!”

“You must have an extremely long prayer list,” remarked Eleanor respectfully. “How do you find time to pray for everything?”

“‘Pray without ceasing,’” came the answer. “I have found that I can pray at any place and at all times.”

“I must try that too,” mused Eleanor.

A stray kitten wandered into the room. Seeing the Christmas tree, he immediately began to pat with his paw at the dangling icicles. Eleanor chuckled, then removed an icicle and began to tease the kitten with it. Mother Stewart looked on, smiling affectionately. Suddenly she sighed deeply, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes. Her mouth tightened. Eleanor looked up in sudden concern.

“Mother, are you well?” came the insistent question. The kitten, forgotten, began pulling the piece of tinsel across the living room floor.

“I am a bit tired, dear,” replied the older woman with a patient smile. “We have been in such a hurry-scurry to get the fireplace built before you came. I’ll be all right again before long.”

“I hope so,” returned Eleanor with loving concern. “I don’t like to see you looking so weary. I am afraid you worked too hard getting ready for Dick and me.”

“Oh, no! The girls did it all. I’m just a bit tired. I’ll be all right.”

“It was grand of you to give Bob and Marilyn the little house and ground for their own,” said Eleanor a few minutes later. “They will be happy in their own place-but what will you do without them?”

“Oh, Bob will continue to run the farm. I can’t spare him from that. But now that their little family is growing, they should have their own home. Bob has been such a good son he deserves all I can give him. We will get along here fairly well—and next year, unless the Lord has other plans, you can stay with me while Connie goes to school.”

“I’d love that!”

“I think God sent you to us when we needed you,” said Mother Stewart, patting Eleanor’s hand lovingly. “You are a comfort to us all.”

“Thank you, Mother. I love you all and want to do all I can for you to show it. You don’t know how much you’ve done for me.”

Then silence reigned, broken only by the snapping and crackling of the blazing logs on the hearth.

Outside the snow glistened in the morning sunshine, and in the distance, on the hill behind the church, two tall pine trees decked in gleaming white mantles stood firmly against the blue winter sky.

Merry shouts were heard outside, and Eleanor and Mother hurried to the window to see the fun. Connie and Marilyn, returning with the group from sledding, had tripped Bob, rolled him in a great drift, and were washing his face with fluffy handfuls of the snow, while Dick and Mary Lou looked on in glee. Bob finally
shook himself loose from his tormentors and made a lunge at Dick, knocking him into the deep snow. Over and over the two rolled. The girls stood and hurled snow at them until there appeared to be five animated snowmen running around the yard, chasing each other with snowballs. Then the rosy-cheeked snowmen tramped on to the front door, only to be met by an adamant Mother Stewart.

“Into this parlor with all that snow on you? The very idea!” She laughed. “Down to the basement, all of you, and sweep off before you set foot in my house.”

“Woe is me!” Bob drew a doleful face. “Turned out of my home by my own mother! Come on, girls and boys—let’s not subject ourselves to any further inhospitality
here.
”

“Oh, Len, you missed such fun,” said Mary Lou, the first up from the basement.

Eleanor only smiled, then Dick, who had just emerged from the regions of banishment, rubbed his cold nose against her cheek and whispered, “Eleanor, I’ll never thank you enough for bringing me. This has been the greatest fun I ever had!”

He smiled cryptically, then dashed off to his room to brush his hair for dinner. “Now what has he been up to?” pondered Eleanor, observing the cocky tilt of his retreating shoulders. “Homesick, indeed!”

Mrs. Hunt covered herself with glory when the Christmas feast was set on the table. Turkey, cranberries, squash, potatoes, gravy, biscuits, salad, fruitcake, pie, and nuts were all there, in tempting and aromatic array.

“Oh, boy!” exclaimed Dick with enthusiasm. “Eleanor, just think of the poor souls who had to stay at school
over the Christmas holidays and are even now gazing upon cafeteria trays in the deserted lunchroom.”

“Poor things!” echoed Eleanor.

After dinner Mother went to her room for a nap. Bob tucked Marilyn and baby Patty into the sled, and they set off to see Marilyn’s family. Mary Lou curled up in a chair with
The Swiss Family Robinson,
and Connie and Dick donned snowshoes and returned to the woods to gather some bittersweet and glossy greens they had admired.

Eleanor was left alone. She donned her heaviest wraps and slipped out the side door into the clear, cold winter air. Drawing deep breaths to fill her lungs, she realized how invigorating it was in comparison with the smoky city air to which she had been accustomed.

Her footsteps turned toward the road leading to the pines on the hill. Less than a year ago she had fled down this same road in lonely desperation, and now—how changed her life was! The despair and grief were gone. In spite of the separation from Chad, she was not even lonely, for she had found the companionship of One who had filled her life with joy again.

Eleanor found the little church closed and silent, and the ferns and flowers she had last seen on the hillside were now blanketed with snow. But the faithful little evergreens stood firm, vivid against the white background.

Snowdrifts covered the steps, but Eleanor felt her way up carefully. At last she stood at the top, and there before her were the two graves that she sought, covered with freshly cut boughs of cedar and spruce.

Bob and Dick must have done this when they went
with the milk this morning,
thought Eleanor.
It was kind and beautiful of them to remember Chad and Father Stewart amid all the festivities.

With mittened hands Eleanor brushed the snow from the bench and seated herself. Many were the quiet hours she had spent in this peaceful place last summer. Now the vast expanses of unbroken snow, the mantled hush of the winter woods, and the cedar-covered bed where Chad lay sleeping, even while his soul was rejoicing in the glory of a better land—all brought Eleanor to a sense of nearness to God. She bowed her head and prayed.

As she thus communed with her Father, all her burdens and small cares slipped away, and she realized a new gladness in being even a small part of God’s plan, a tool in His hands to be used as He saw fit. The old willful Eleanor was gone—buried, perhaps, in the grave under the cedars. A new Eleanor was now truly the bond servant of Christ, voluntarily yielding to Him a life full of talents, ready for service.

A cardinal fluttered to a branch close by and began his message of “good cheer, good cheer.” Eleanor started and realized it must be high time to start back. Before leaving, though, she knelt by the stone that said “CHAD” and prayed again.

“Dear Father, I thank Thee for loving me and saving me and bringing me out of my darkness into this place of peace and service. I thank Thee that I had Chad for a while and that he is now with Thee. I thank Thee for my baby—our baby. I know that he is in Thy care. If it be Thy will, may I find him some day. But if not, then
please let me trust Thee that he is safely in Thy care. Take him and me and use us both for Thy glory. Amen.” Eleanor patted the cedar boughs. “Good-bye for now, darling,” she said. “You do know that God has healed all my willfulness, don’t you?”

O
ne morning in late January Eleanor met Dick as he came from the school post office. His hands were bulging with mail.

“Did you leave any for me ?” she asked gaily.

Dick shook his head. “Nope. I got it all.”

“It looks as though that fat envelope might be for me,” continued Eleanor. “I surely recognize the handwriting.”

Dick’s face reddened, and he slipped the telltale letter into his pocket.

“How often does Connie write?” continued Eleanor with a sisterly interest.

“Not often enough,” growled Dick. “Don’t tease me, Len. I can’t stand it. I thought you knew I had heart trouble.”

“Since when?” asked Eleanor, suddenly concerned.

“Oh, Christmas time,” replied Dick airily and started away.

Eleanor called him back. “Please forgive me, Dickie boy. I won’t tease you anymore. In fact, I give you my blessing. I’ll bake pies for your wedding.”

“Perhaps we’d better just elope,” replied Dick, making a wry face. “I don’t trust your pies. But on the whole—” he began to walk away, so that his words merely floated back to Eleanor’s eager ears “—it’s … not … such … a … bad … idea!”

“Well, I never!” she exclaimed to herself happily. “I really started something, I guess.” Then she went on into the post office.

The clerk handed her a letter addressed in Mary Lou’s distinctive handwriting. She smiled at the sloping letters, but the smile faded from her face as she broke open the envelope and read the contents.

Eleanor found it impossible to concentrate on her next class.

What will they do there with Mother sick?
she pondered while the lecture droned on and on.
And how will they ever pay for the operation? But Mother must have it, if I have to—why, of course! I will help pay for it myself! They’ve done so much for me, here is my opportunity to repay it a little.