Sour Apple - Sweet Core

Sour Apple – Sweet Core

1968 Westover AFB, Massachusetts

                                      

During the Viet Naam War, we lived on Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee< Massachusetts.  I was expecting my first child, Ralph’s second son.  Ralph’s unit was going to Guam with the B52’s.  Half of the men on base went six months at a time, then the other half when they came back then rotate again, and so it went.

I was a twenty year old Southern gal stuck in “Yankee Territory” having my first child North of the Mason-Dixon line alone, and I could not drive.  My husband was my sunshine, my moon, my waking joy, my sustainer - - my world.  He was worth leaving the South for; however, his leaving shattered my world. 

I remember a friend driving us to the hangar, our painful good-bye, then going to a parking lot in view of the planes by the flight line.  I could distinguish my beloved from all the others in the trail of “ants” of drab olive disappearing into the plane by his distinctive walk. I can still see it in my memory clearly!  He climbed the steps, turned, and waved.  We stayed until the plane was out of sight as it took my heart, my joy, my world with it.

[Backing up so you can understand: My life worth mentioning began when I married Ralph.  My childhood was not a happy one.  We did not know what the peace and love of a Christian home was.  We had little peace in our home.  I had little guidance as to how to live my life.  I had thought that I was a Christian based on an experience at age fourteen, or that my Father was a preacher, but I had not been converted. 

From the moment I met him, Ralph shined Jesus Christ!  He kept me under the sound of the Gospel in a good church, and read the Scriptures often.  He lived what he said he believed.  All the ladies in our little church we joined while meeting in a little pizza parlor were attending Child Evangelism Fellowship Teacher Training Classes, so I went with them.  I found out that each of us must come as we are to God by faith and believe in Him, repenting of our sins, and trusting His work on the cross by His mercy to save us.  On November 29^th 1967, at age nineteen in our little third floor tenement, God convicted me so strongly early that morning that I prayed asking Him to forgive my sins and to save me.   I was filled with joy and peace that I never knew before. Then, I learned that we must all also grow in the faith and in our walk with God.  I grew in knowledge rather rapidly, but I had few trials to test my faith.]

So back to the day Ralph left for Guam, this was a hard time for me.  When I returned home to our little apartment on base I cried.  I cried until there were no more tears to cry, then sobbed some more.  I felt like my life was gone with my beloved.  After grieving for two days this way, being unable to lift myself out of this terrible grief, I turned to God and prayed.  I remember telling Him that I couldn’t bear the emptiness, and because no Christian should be so defeated and sad that I wanted either to die or be relieved of this awful grief.

The next morning, our dog woke me by licking my face and I was laughing.  I was laughing! I remembered my night time prayer and became aware of God’s peace in me.  I was conscious of His goodness to give me His joy.  Those next few months I studied God’s Word, grew in faith, saw miraculous answers to my prayers, and was wonderfully close to the Lord in a way never duplicated after this. 

God provided all my needs physically, spiritually, and socially during the next few months as I awaited the arrival of my first baby.  Ralph came home to a three week old son and a new wife.

I call an experience like this a sour apple with a sweet core because God allowed me to suffer to teach me that I could rely on Him for all my needs.  He became sweeter than anything.