In 1981, Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book, “When Bad Things Happen To Good People”
was breaking sales records all across America. So popular was the book that it
became the subject of many college courses, focus and study groups, and
eventually it passed over 4 million copies in sales.
For inquiring minds, an equally intriguing book could be written titled, “When
Good Things Happen To Bad People.”
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, my parents had every reason to ask the
second question. They struggled to feed six children and Mother’s health was so
poor that she spent much of the time in bed, too ill from pernicious anemia to
care for her family.
The final blow came when Daddy lost his job on the Lehigh Valley Railroad. I was
a newborn baby with a mother almost too weak to nurse me. My oldest sister said
the strongest memory she had of me as an infant was of my crying hour after hour
from hunger pains because there was so little milk.
If ever a couple had occasion to question God, it was my parents at this time of
their lives. They had established Christ as the head of our home, were faithful
tithers, yet were not spared the vagaries and cruelties of the Depression that
caused thousands to jump from multi-storied building to their early deaths all
across America.
Unable to pay his house payments, facing foreclosure and lacking only $500 to
pay off the mortgage, Daddy approached his older brother, Irvin, about a loan.
Uncle Irvin held a position of prominence at IBM and had been impacted little,
if any, by the Depression.
“Indeed not!” Uncle Irvin raged. “If you hadn’t been giving money to the church
all these years you wouldn’t be in the financial straits you are now.
Without his aid, Mother and Daddy lost their home and we moved into a rental
property.
Hearing that story later as a young girl, I asked Mother why she and Daddy
weren’t bitter toward Uncle Irvin or worse, mad at God. When Uncle Irvin visited
our home, he was always warmly greeted and showered with love. My parents
harbored no malice.
Mother had memorized a four-line poem that, along with her unwavering faith and
close walk with God, enabled her to look past their present circumstances to a
time when God would relieve their economic stresses and give them financial
stability:
“When I see the wicked prosper in their sinning
And the righteous dealt with many a cruel fate,
I remember this is only the beginning
And I whisper to my spirit, “Only wait.”
Though they never owned a home, never drove a car, my parents used their meager
income to help six of their seven children through college. One became a banker.
Another a teacher. Two became Christian missionaries to Africa and the
Philippines, one became a pastor’s wife, and two rose to the highest rungs of
their corporate ladders in business and finance.
My parents set a standard of Christian conduct for themselves that their
children strove hard to emulate. We never heard them question God. We witnessed
them reading their Bibles and praying regularly. We never saw any evidence of
envy or jealousy on their part. They stayed the course and never wavered in
their faith. Not even once.
Sadly, during their forty years of marriage before cancer claimed the life of my
father, they were never blessed financially. They struggled but they made it.
And accepting state or government assistance would have been unthinkable to
them. They had purposely laid up their treasures in heaven where neither thieves
nor moths could corrupt, and they lived simple but godly lives.
One day as a young adult, I sat on the front porch with my father watching my
two young sons playing on the lawn. Reaching over to hug me, Daddy said softly,
“I am the richest man in the world. All our children are grown, are happy and
doing well. We are blessed.”
But not as blessed as their children were in having them for parents.
Mariane Holbrook
mariane777@bellsouth.net
The Illustrator: This daily newsletter is dedicated to encouraging
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