Learning The Choreography

5.  Learning The Choreography

 

“What is seen is temporary …

what is unseen is eternal.”[30] 

 

Modern Dance - A form of dance as developed by Martha Graham, Haya Holm, Doris Humphyre, Charles Weidman and others [that] expresses complex emotions

and abstract ideas.[31]

 

“Modern dance is not an exact term.  It was invented as a name for serious-theatrical-dance-that-is-not-ballet ...  There is no one form of modern dance.”[32]

 

Sometimes The Dance can feel so awkward.  Actually, there are times when The Dance of Life feels more like jerking and flailing.  The picture of a fish out of water, flopping around on a wooden dock, comes to mind.  And if you believe, as I do, that God is the Choreographer of Life, it’s during those uncertain times when I feel most confused.  I’ve said, “God, this doesn’t feel right!  Are You sure You want to do it this way?  This can’t be part of my Dance.”

During the American Revolution, Thomas Paine wrote, “These are the times that try men’s souls” … and in life, trying times help us discover our faith.

In late 1982 and much of 1983, Vicki would discover where her faith was placed, that is, Who her faith was in.  She would come to better understand self-confidence and God-confidence.

Vicki was a person of faith when I met her.  She had developed a childlike, as opposed to childish, faith early in life because she had great parents who believed in Sunday School.  She was blessed.  In her middle teens she lived through a significant relationship breakup, but other than that Vicki went through the first 25 years of life virtually unscathed.  If she had any doubts they were the small, manageable kind.

Leaving Bethesda for Richmond would be a test of her faith. 

Vicki could sense the test coming so she prepared as best she could by boning up on portions of the Bible that would help give her perspective, hope, and insight.  In the Spring of 1982 would Vicki have told you that she trusted God, “… just not completely.”  That Spring He began developing in her a faith that one day would have to be unshakable when everything around her was shaking.

Vicki wrote about our impending move this way on May 14, 1982:

So much has happened.  We have committed ourselves to a full-time ministry with [the parachurch ministry].  As I seek God and His will, peace replaces fear.

 

May 17, 1982

Mark 10:43-45 – “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave to all.  For even the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

Lowell, and even I, will have to have a servant’s heart, not only to the Lord, but to [the president of the parachurch ministry].  Help us to die to our selves/pride, and follow Your example, Jesus, of servanthood.

 

May 18, 1982

Uh oh.  Fear was replacing peace.  Fear of relationship changes, and what our family would think of our “irrational decision” to leave Bethesda; how I would cope with an unknown town (Richmond) with Lowell traveling … but God has given me this promise:  He will go with us and “if God is for you, who can be against you.”  Thank You, Lord, for Your peace.”

 

May 19, 1982

Luke 10:62 – “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God.”

We’ve made the decision to go.  Keep my eyes ahead to our future in You and I may NOT look back once to things that “might have been.”

 

For the next six months Vicki only wrote one journal entry.  That lone entry was dated July 23, 1982.  Three days after our ninth wedding anniversary she penned,

Psalm 106:13-15 – May I never forget to seek Your counsel or to ask for the wrong kind of things.

 

God’s peace was there from time to time … but those times felt fewer and farther apart.

 

We moved to Richmond in August of ’82, and from the moment we left Bethesda conflict entered our home like nothing we had ever experienced before.  I second-guessed our move every other day, and Vic did so every day.  Vicki didn’t record the details of the various stressors attending our move:  the little apartment, no friends, an unfamiliar church, and hand-to-mouth living.   Years later, I asked her why she hadn’t recorded anything of significance from May through December of ’82.  Her reply was chilling, and tongue-in-cheek:  “I didn’t want there to be any evidence they could use against me if they found your body floating in the James River.”

Sadly, we didn’t need a journal to help us recollect the host of anxieties surrounding our move.  We remembered.  How could we forget?

First and foremost, back then there was enormous financial stress.  In Bethesda I had been making about $650 a week, and the church had provided a rent-free home along with all our utilities.  $650 may not sound like much to you until you understand that I took the job in Richmond for about $350 a week.  That’s it … and out of that meager amount came our apartment rent and utilities.  Living in Richmond, granted, was much less expensive than living in DC, but still, once we made the move our income was never able to keep up with our outgo.  We had accumulated some unsecured debt in Bethesda, and to add more injury to, well, injury, just a few months before we moved we had purchased a newer car.

Financial stress became ever-present.  Once the calls began to come from our creditors Vicki took most of them.  One time she had to promise that the check would be in the mail the next day even though our refrigerator contained a little cheese, some spaghetti sauce, a gallon of milk made from some powdery concoction, and a few Tupperware bowls with leftover leftovers.

Are you wondering why I accepted the position and made the move, too?  In hindsight I believe I was suffering from pastoral ministry fatigue.  I was tired of pastoring in Bethesda because things weren’t happening fast enough for me.  The world hadn’t discovered what a fantastic preacher I was, so people weren’t beating a path to the door of the church.  Bethesda hadn’t turned into the mega-church I envisioned.  But in spite of my fatigue, I had this sense we were destined to do great things for God.  So …  the fatigue, coupled with that prideful idealism, led to the move to Richmond. 

When I received the offer from the parachurch ministry I thought, “This is God.  He knows I’m ready to move.”  And after reviewing the pay package, and checking out the cost of living in Richmond, I sincerely believed we could make it.  Why?  Because in the back of my mind, fueled by my imagination and ego, I assumed my salary would double, or triple in short order.  And why did I think that?  Because … I assumed, again … in short order I would have demonstrated my indispensable value to the ministry.

Didn’t happen.

Second, there was the stress in Vicki’s heart from living like a single parent.  She told me once, “I thought I was married but boy, was I wrong!”  Every day she lived with two high-energy little boys.  Brandon and Chris were very active toddlers, and I was coming home from long, sometimes-twelve-but-usually-sixteen hour days at the office.  Vicki would frequently be sitting on our sofa with a traumatized expression on her face.  Her first words to me when I came through the door were generally not pleasant.  Sometimes, with her face a twisted scowl, she’d accusingly ask, “Where have you been?  Do you know what I had to face today?” 

To make matters even more difficult, by the time I came home she was typically dressed in a ratty housecoat that implied, “I’m going right to bed; I just wanted to see you before I disappeared for the night!”  I didn’t dare laugh sarcastically, or voice a complaint (like, “How come you never greet me at the door in a beautiful negligee, with candles bathing the room in warm light, and a sumptuous meal awaiting?”).  I just silently ate my bowl of cold mac-and-cheese and a glass of warm “iced tea.”  You get the picture?

I do wish I had been MORE silent during those stressful days, but, stupidly, my responses to her very vocal frustrations were hardly ever sympathetic.  I had usually steeled myself for a confrontation at the front door on my drive home.  You know what I mean.  I thought I knew what I was coming home to, so my defenses were already up.  As a result, Vicki and I spent a lot of time just butting heads as we closed out the day.

Hindsight being what it is, I wanted compassion and understanding because of my workload, and Vicki wanted the same.

In spite of all the heartache, something beautiful was going on inside us.  As the financial and marital stress ramped up, God was at work in Vicki (and me, but that’s another story).  He was building her character, tempering her desires and expectations, and as it turned out, developing in her a supernatural love for the boys and me. 

I pretty much wasted the last half of 1982 on me.  The move to Richmond was all about me and my ego.  However, I began to see real changes in Vic’s responses to me, our sons, and our circumstances around the beginning of that December.  If I had stood before a judge at that time I would have had to say, “You honor, I wish my testimony could be that I found myself working alongside God as He gently formed Vicki into the person He intended her to be, and that I selflessly assisted Him in His gracious enterprise.”  But I can’t say I was cooperating with God.  At that time I had a personal agenda. I wanted two things:  the praise of men (with its attendant boost to my ego and my salary), and for the stress at home to lighten up without me having to expend any effort.

Not good.

I didn’t mention it earlier, but we had developed a significant habit, one that later proved to be a noteworthy part of our story.  Beginning in 1979 (shortly after Brandon’s birth) and continuing for the rest of our marriage, Vicki and I would sit at our kitchen table and write out our goals for the coming year.  After that first go in 1979 we would usually take October, November and December to figure out what we hoped to accomplish the next calendar year.   We actually had a name for what we did:  “The New Year Planning Session.”  The goals were what we called family objectives (such as vacations we hoped to take, events we hoped to attend, financial ambitions, or significant purchases we hoped to make – like a car or even a house). 

Following our goal-setting sessions we would also toss around phrases that might sum up what we hoped to do.  We wanted the phrase to have the sound of a motto, like the Boy Scout’s “Be Prepared.”  Most of our phrases, however, sounded more like Chinese New Year terminology, with names like “The Year of the New Home,” or “This Year in Hawaii,” or “New Wheels in ‘90.” 

I recommend this practice … of setting family goals.  It serves to get everyone in the family unified, believing for the same things, or at least knowledgeable of what Mom and Dad hoped to accomplish.

By the end of ‘82 we had defined our 1983 family goal, and the phrase that summed up what we hoped to achieve.  The two-part goal was (1) to learn to live with our decision that brought us to Richmond, and (2) to grow from the experience.  The motto we adopted was simple enough.  “Live Gracefully.”

All the above is the context for what Vicki recorded next in her journal.

January 1, 1983

My resolutions for the New Year:

1.              Develop a “gentle and quiet spirit.”[33]

2.              Lead at least one soul to the Lord.

3.              To be content where I am.

4.              Through faith, to have a healthier family – less sickness.

5.              To be more aware of other’s needs and my potential for ministering to them (less self-centered).

6.              Develop a more positive attitude toward life and Lowell’s job.

7.              Learn to live above my circumstances.

8.              Be more loving and patient (emphasis hers) as a Mom.  (Brandon is almost 4 and Chris 2 ½ - such an important age!)

9.              Become a more supportive wife.

10.           Lose 5 pounds and exercise at least twice a week at the spa.

11.           Become more organized in my housework and personal life.

12.           Devotions every day! (Emphasis hers)

 

The January 1, 1983 journal entry, to my knowledge, is also the only time Vicki wrote out personal resolutions for a new year, and that’s why I believe they are so significant.  They mirrored what God had been doing in her life for the seven months leading up to her writing them.

In spite of agreeing to the 1983 goal – to “Live Gracefully” – by early February we weren’t anywhere close to practically applying the motto.  We both had a sense I had misunderstood God, and Vicki had decided coming to Richmond was to be our purgatory – a place of waiting, in torment, until something better came along. 

Things were much easier for me.  I could at least stay busy at work; I felt I was contributing to a worthwhile ministry.  I loved my boss and his wife, and firmly believed in the ministry God had called them to do.  But I knew I was now a fish out of water … a man with a pastor’s heart feeling stuck in a ministry that would never fully utilize my gifts or calling.

Vicki and I knew that soon we would have to take a leap of faith, and leave the relative safety of working in an established and reputable ministry.

In the midst of all this pressure Vicki invited God to change her.  She didn’t like what was coming out of her mouth.  She didn’t like what was in her heart.  She knew she was created for better, more excellent things.  Her resolutions had not come from meditating on the sage advice found in Cosmopolitan or People Magazine.  She started praying “surrendering prayers.”  I can distill the prayers I heard her praying down to these themes: 

·      “I know You can’t use me to my fullest potential right now.  I know I need to change.”

·      “I want to trust You, O God, more and more.”  (There’s the faith component.)

·      “I believe some of my attitudes and behaviors are at cross purposes to Your will for my life.  You are the Potter, and I am just clay.  Mold me … shape my life.”

·      “While I don’t know what tomorrow may bring, I trust You, Lord.” (There’s the faith thing again!)

·      “I know You love me, and that You have a great story to tell to this world IF can get me take direction and follow the script, word-for-word.  Well, I will not deviate from the script.  I surrender my will for Yours.”

·      “I will do what You envision for me, hit the marks, sing the notes, and dance the dance.”

 

Vicki took a leap of faith into God’s strong arms!  As a result, her trust and confidence grew … by leaps and bounds, if you will.  In a sense, moving to Richmond was a “bungee” jump.

In her reading she discovered things like:

·      “If you meet someone who says your Christian faith is irrational, ask him to explain the basis of his faith.”[34]

·      “Man cannot discover new oceans until he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”[35]

·      Alexander Graham Bell said, “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”[36]

(I later found them written on sticky-note paper and stuffed in her vanity drawer.)

Vicki began reading (and rereading) the great stories of faithful and faith-filled people.  Doing so bolstered her faith.  Most of the stories she read were from the pages of her Bible, and they seemed especially helpful, but all the stories gave God something to work with as He began implementing another stage of development in her life.

After reading Hannah’s story[37] Vicki decided God could be trusted with Brandon and Chris’ futures, and after reading Noah’s story[38] she became certain God could be trusted with her entire family, me included.  When she read the story of Sarah,[39] wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac, she decided God could be trusted with our marriage, and when Vicki read about Mary,[40] the mother of Jesus, she resolved that God could be trusted with the many unknowns of life.  Vic especially liked Simon Peter, the impulsive and brash Apostle; she decided that if God could use him, God could use her.

The common denominator Vicki discovered in each life story of The Faithful was a certain kind of patience, a quality in short supply around our house.  Patience allows time for perspective to develop, and character to change.  It was lacking in the Qualls home.

It’s noteworthy that seven months after believing we had blown it by moving to Richmond, Vicki began to believe God was using the parachurch ministry for our good.  She began to see this time as “something necessary.”  She came to believe, and she told me so more than once, that if we hadn’t come to Richmond, with all the accompanying pressure brought on the move, God would have come up with another way to shape our hearts … and get us to Richmond.

Remarkably, Vicki began to see something beautiful developing in our marriage.  She helped me see it, too.  We began to exercise real trust, convinced that God was at work in our lives, and that everything would work out.  It makes what she wrote on March 31, 1983, even more significant.  You’ll notice a bit of sadness rather than relief in her words.

It looks like God is leading us out of [the parachurch ministry].  Lowell has grown restless and frustrated by the demands placed on him.  His strength is not administration, and it seems that this is where the major part of his job lies.  The hours are long and his relationship with family and God has suffered …

 

I told her, years later while we were reading her journals together, “You were so gracious during that stretch of time.  I was so bull-headed, and blind to how things were effecting you.”  With a gleam in her eye she nodded and said, “Yeah … I know.”