Mary Walmsley

Under God’s Teaching

It had been 25 years since I had set foot in a schoolroom. This one was small, with space for no more than a dozen desks and a pot-bellied stove. The stove still stood in the middle of the room, its wood neatly stacked inside the front door. Above the blackboard a large but faded alphabet still extended its ageless invitation to explore the world of ideas.

The entire school had been contained in this one room. A closet-sized alcove had served as the teacher’s room while wooden pegs on the vestibule wall sufficed as the children’s cloakroom. Beside the door hung the rope for the school-bell in the belfry on the roof. Through the window I could see the outhouse still standing alone in the backyard.

I had come here for work. Having been an elementary school teacher in a 20^th century, metropolitan school system, I couldn’t help but wonder what teaching in a school such as this would have been like. The thought of having all ages and all subjects under the loving care of one competent teacher appealed to me. It may have been challenging and exhausting, but surely the rewards must have been great, if the teacher were a good one.

          This little school had been converted into a fabric and needlework shop filled to overflowing with tantalizing supplies. Customers came regularly from near and far. Quilters called it “a quilter’s paradise” because of the generous variety of calicos. Embroiderers considered it “heaven” for its inviting assortment of colors and textures in fabrics, threads, and kits of all sorts. Books on all aspects of needlework – from “the history of” to “how to do it yourself” lined the schoolroom shelves.

          My job was to be the clerk in this little shop. The year was 1975, the first year of my living alone. As divorce proceedings moved forward, my marriage was fast becoming history. I faced the future like a bewildered child on the first day of school.

          Although there was a familiar ring to being the person in charge of a schoolroom again, I entered that room as a somewhat frightened student of life, a beginner at living alone, a 45-year-old woman having to start all over again. The radical change in my marital status had compelled me to think differently and ask questions. I didn’t want to be divorced, so how did it happen? I still loved my husband, so what went wrong? What is “Right”? How do we know that it is “Right?” And how do we hold on to what is Right?

          The fact that other people were in the same situation failed to diminish the pain of my wrestling. In truth, knowing that many others were suffering the same anguish made my plight all the more sad, and I grieved for them as well.

I had become a prime candidate for elementary education in God’s grace, mercy, and salvation. I knew God was in control, and He knew that I was ready to learn. He had put me in that schoolroom so that I would recognize Him as the Teacher. He supplied all my needs. Instead of writing with pen and ink on a tablet, I would express my thoughts by “writing” with a needle and thread on cloth. Under His watchful eye I would begin to unravel the complexities and confusion from my former life and weave together the fabric of a new life in Him.