Core of Conviction : My Story (9781101563571) Page 6

  But even so, the new LaFave-Amble “blended family” was mostly older, out-of-the-house kids. By my senior year, I had piled up enough credits that I only needed to spend half a day in school for my first semester and could work the rest of the time, and then I graduated.

  But by that time, I was almost out of the house anyway. I got my driver’s license and bought my first car, a three-hundred-dollar Rambler with a manual transmission with “three on the tree.” Ray taught me how to drive the stick shift while my mother drove me crazy with her backseat-driving “suggestions.” Ray had me drive back home and told my mother to get out of the car. Once she was gone, Ray directed me to the high school parking lot and in no time I learned the feel of a manual transmission and was on my way. So I could now drive to work as a restaurant hostess. Then I got a job picking up and dropping off special-needs children at events around Anoka. Once I organized a trip for the kids to go to a Vikings football game. They loved it.

  I graduated from Anoka High in 1974 and with less than nine hundred dollars in the bank, I had limited options for college. I had no money for a four-year university, but I signed up to attend Anoka-Ramsey Community College to pick up some academic credits at eight dollars a credit hour, because I was determined, no matter what, that I would go to college and then figure out how to earn a living. My mom meant well, but she didn’t encourage me to attend college. She thought I should try to get a job as a secretary, as she had. It would offer stability, she told me. My dad hadn’t been in my life to offer direction, but I knew that there was no way I was going to miss getting an education. So I filled out forms, made calls, and assumed that my only option was community college. I paid rent to my mother and Ray to live at home while I was at community college, because I wanted to pay my bills as I was going to school. It was a bit of a lonely time for me; most of my friends had moved away, and I, too, wanted to be at a four-year school and find new friends and adventure. But with little money and even less guidance, I looked for an adventure the summer after my first year of community college.

  During the first nineteen years of my life, I had never been outside the Midwest, except for just across the northern Minnesota border to Rainy Lake in Canada. So when the doors began to open and I finally got the chance to travel, I jumped at it. My uncle Donnie, my mother’s brother, was an adventurer; he had lit out for Alaska as a young man with his wife Sylvia and their young family in the forties and stayed there, working as a big-game hunting guide and dabbling in other businesses. So I spent the summer of 1975 working for him at his fishing lodge in the Aleutian Islands, where he often hosted geologists looking for oil finds. I not only cleaned fish but also did the laundry and cooked—I even tarred roofs.

  Those were exciting times in Alaska, as the oil boom was just beginning. Down in the “lower forty-eight,” as Alaskans referred to the continental United States, the talk was all about “the energy crisis”—the inevitability of gas lines, the need to turn our thermostats down, the need generally to live with less. According to the self-appointed experts, the seventies had become the “the era of limits.” But I surely didn’t see any limits in Alaska. Everybody up there in the “last frontier,” as they called it, knew that Alaska was blessed with an abundance of oil, natural gas, and other precious raw materials to share with the world. It was just a question of accessing them responsibly, that’s all. It made no sense to anyone, especially Alaskans, why federal-government restrictions were blocking the extraction of all this wealth, as well as preventing the creation of good jobs that paid good wages.

  Having seen up close in Alaska the enormous God-given potential of our nation, I grew permanently skeptical of claims about shortages and demands for rationing. And in my young mind, I could see that America faced a stark choice. On the one hand, explorers and wildcatters were finding and producing wealth for the benefit of all; on the other hand, politicians and bureaucrats were trying to limit output, in accordance with a politically correct dogma that further entrenched the power of a distant and arrogant elite, many of whom had never been to Alaska.

  So I learned a lot in Alaska. And yet as I thought about my own future, including college, I knew I wanted to be closer to home. Once again, God’s hand intervened in my life. I met a geologist there who had formerly taught at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota; he took a kindly interest in me. I told him I didn’t want to go back to community college but didn’t have the money for a costly school. He recommended Winona, not far from the Twin Cities. He explained that it was inexpensive, was situated in a wonderful little town, and offered great academics. He sold me on it. So I sent away for the school catalog; my letter went out on the airplane that came to and from our small Aleutian camp once a week. A couple of weeks later, the plane dropped its regular mailbag, and in the pouch was a catalog from Winona State. I read it, filled out an application, sent a check for the application fee, and was soon accepted. That was the beginning of my new life—first as a student and then, later, as a wife, mother, and career woman.

  I borrowed my cousin’s college guidebook and sent requests for catalogues for fifty colleges across the country. We had no TV, radio, or telephone; only a shortwave radio we used for emergencies. With long sun-filled days and evenings—we had three days when the sun never truly set—I had nothing to do after work except read college catalogues. So I scoured them all, even as I was teased each week by my uncle and cousins, because I was the one getting all the mail and packages. One day while cleaning the cabins, I read the Winona State catalogue. The school had it all: every department, a beautiful romantic campus; it was the oldest college west of the Mississippi. And it was eight dollars a credit hour! I could do this! When we were little, our dad had told us never to go into debt. That’s the way everyone we knew lived. No one had much money, but everyone saved a little, they gave their money to church, and spent less than they had. Democrats, Republicans, apolitical, we all lived that way. “Bankruptcy” was a dirty word. Taking money from the government was something we wouldn’t consider doing. Besides, there was no need. Our parents were careful and were not foolish with their money. I knew that finishing college was my goal and that there would be a better life thereafter, so I made it my mission to pay as I went and to not graduate with debt. I wouldn’t even put a quarter in the pop machine on campus, much less spend money on a spring break trip. I worked. I went to school, because I had that greater goal.

  But I should pause here and step back a couple of years to describe the single most important relationship I will ever have—my relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

  If you had asked me growing up if I was a believing Christian, I would have said, “Of course!”

  I loved the Lutheran Church. I had been baptized as a Lutheran, went to church every Sunday, attended vacation Bible school every summer, and prayed a traditional Lutheran prayer at night before I went to bed. And I was proud that I came from a long line of Lutherans; I remember, as a kid, driving through Iowa with my parents and stopping at a Lutheran church near a little place called Jericho, where many of my ancestors had once lived and were buried. There we were able to look at the old church records and see all sorts of family names—including that of Halvor Munson, my great-great-grandfather. I was proud that my ancestors had been actively involved in their church, but as far as I was concerned, that was mainly a matter of history. For me as a girl, being a Christian was a simple duty, doing what was expected, it was what we did on our way through life. I didn’t know that I could have a personal relationship with Jesus. There was something missing in my life—a God-shaped hole—even if I didn’t yet realize it.

  As I mentioned, in high school I participated in lots of activities. One activity was a prayer group that met before school. I went to the meetings, and I enjoyed studying the Bible, just as I enjoyed listening to sermons on Sunday. I believed in God; I behaved myself. I didn’t go out drinking, never did drugs, never fooled around with boy
s. None of that had ever held any attraction for me, because I had seen that it led to personal downfall.

  But my friends knew what I didn’t know—that I was not saved, that I had not made my own personal commitment to Jesus. When my friends would make this point to me, I would smile politely and, in my mind, wave them off. I was fine, I said; after all, I was a Lutheran. And I didn’t need to worry about going to heaven. Of course I was going—I was a Lutheran. So my friends prayed for me, and waited, and hoped.

  Let me pause again here to say that I am sure that the Gospel was preached at our church and that folks in the pews all around me heard it just fine. At that church, they heard God’s word, and they were saved, just as He promises salvation to all who believe in Him, anywhere in the world. It’s just that I, as a teenager in Minnesota, had missed the true import of His message. Maybe I thought it was automatic; that I wouldn’t have to do anything except sit in church and nod. Well, in any case, that was all about to change.

  On Halloween night 1972, my friends and I heard that our local church was holding a Halloween party, and so we decided to check it out. We soon discovered that there was no party, but the church doors were open, so we went inside. I was with three of my friends, and we all, at the same time, felt the same need.

  We were all good kids, but none of us had a close relationship with God. At that stunning moment, we knew that we needed more. I had seen enough pain in my life. I had seen how darkness had afflicted my own family. Now I knew I wanted all that behind me.

  So on that Halloween, something was nudging the four of us away from the goblins and the spiderwebs, away from the candy and soda pop—and toward the church sanctuary. We felt pulled. Later I learned that it had been the Holy Spirit that had lovingly led all four of us to our Savior, to our knees in prayer.

  My Bible study had taught me that I needed to confess my sins and put my trust and faith in God’s redemptive power through his son, Jesus Christ. I had read about that. Now I truly knew what it meant.

  I remember saying, “I believe that Jesus is the son of God, I believe that He is true, I believe that I am a sinner, and that Heaven is where I want to go, to be with Him for eternity.” All four of us poured out our hearts to Him, proclaiming that we needed Him to come into our hearts. Not just on Sundays but always. Each and every moment.

  And that’s how it happened. I went home that night, and in my bedroom I prayed again at the foot of my bed to the Lord. And this time, really for the first time, I sensed His peace and His presence. I took the wisdom of Thessalonians to heart: “Pray without ceasing.” And ever since, I have been assured, as written in Hebrews 13:5, that He would never leave me nor forsake me. I had radically abandoned myself to Christ, and that’s when my life truly began. I was born again. I was a new creation, thanks to Him.

  You know the famous line from the hymn, “Was blind, but now can see”? That’s exactly the way I felt. The next morning, November 1, 1972, I woke up with a new vision—not because of my contact lenses but because Jesus was lighting my path. I had a new heart; I was a new person. The difference was like the moment in The Wizard of Oz when everything shifts from black-and-white to Technicolor.

  Now I felt real confidence. Profound confidence. Finally I felt armored and equipped, ready to confront the world and its many challenges. I knew that I belonged to God and that He loved me, and so I no longer had to depend on the approval of others. My cheerful childhood outlook had been damaged by the move away from Iowa, then more damaged my parents’ divorce. And while I had kept plugging away through my early teen years, learning and working, I had felt a gnawing insecurity—an insecurity that is common, I realize, among children of broken homes and blended families. Maybe that’s why I had joined every club, thrown myself into every activity.

  Now, looking back on my life before Christ, I realized that I had been searching for something and not finding it. I had sought approval from teachers and classmates, and while they were almost always nice, they could never fill the real void in my life. What I needed was a close personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. It was upon the rock of that revelation that I would build my life, and if I kept faith with Him and His Word, even the gates of hell would not prevail against me. I was one with Christ, and I knew I would be one with Him forever.

  From that day on, all the ordinary fun of high school—even cheerleading—seemed far less important. It wasn’t about me anymore. Now it was about Him. I had to listen, through prayer and Bible study, for His plan for my life, and how I could use my talents and my abilities to glorify Him. That next summer I joined my dear friend Barb Norbie—my sister in Christ, as well as my sister in life—as a counselor at a Lutheran Bible study camp in Bay Lake, Minnesota, way up north. We all did the usual camp things—swimming, boating, arts and crafts—but every morning and every evening we learned about the Lord.

  I had always been hardworking and success oriented, but now I felt an inner motivation. I was going to work even harder and aim even higher. But I would not labor for the sake of material possessions; I would labor to follow His precepts and was profoundly gratified for God’s grace and mercy in my life. Tests and challenges, to be sure, come to everyone, but they are never more than we can handle, with His help. By trusting in God and His Covenant Word, we can find the strength to overcome. The world may buffet us, but the Word bolsters us.

  So now, more than ever, I looked forward to being happily married someday, surrounded by a lovingly united family. That was my commitment to the Lord: In addition to following the Lord, I wanted to be a good wife, a good mother, a good citizen, and a good American. And with God’s help, I would do everything I could to leave the world a better place.

  Yet as I grew older, I came to see forces at work that were making America a worse place, not a better place. It was hard for me to comprehend that certain forces in society were seeking to undermine the family, to undermine the traditional structures of our society, and, indeed, to undermine all the moral and political achievements of our Judeo-Christian heritage. It was an onslaught against the goodness of the American tradition. And the worst of all was the devaluation of human life. Life, I realized, was losing its value.

  I had always loved children, and yet well into my teens, I was naive about abortion. I guess I had a hard time even imagining that a mother would not want her baby. I was sixteen at the time of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, and I will admit that I didn’t quite understand what it was all about. But then a Catholic friend explained it to me, the full disastrous dimensions of what the Supreme Court had just done to our culture and to our nation. I was shocked by what she said, and I immediately realized that I was completely committed to a pro-life position. Why would our government legalize taking the life of an unborn baby? Why should an abortion-minded young woman not be told of the negative emotional and physical repercussions she would face as the result of an abortion? How could anyone kill a little baby? How could such a crime be allowed? I have enormous sympathy for unwed mothers, to be sure, and for those who live with doubt and fear of the future; it is the duty of the rest of us, of course, to help them. Which Marcus and I chose to do. We reached out to offer counsel and friendship to women in unplanned pregnancies. We drove them to an adoption agency nearby. I went through child-birthing class with an unwed mom and held one woman’s hand as she gave birth to her daughter—that was nearly thirty years ago. It takes courage for an unwed mom to see her pregnancy through to birth, and I thank the fathers who stand by the mothers of their children and do all they can to support the mother and the children that together they brought into this world. But at the same time, we have to stand up for the unborn. And with God’s help, we can do both; we can keep faith with the mother and with the child, seeing it not only to term but to a good life beyond.

  And yet in our efforts to protect the family and to preserve what Pope John Paul II called the “culture of life,” I began to se
e that our government was often on the wrong side. Government officials were praising, even subsidizing, the worst kinds of behavior—not just abortion but also idleness, dependency, and delinquency. The pundits of the era, speaking down to us from their high perches in their ivory towers, called it “justice” and “liberation.” But here on the ground, in real-world America, where I was living, the rest of us could see that the government was fostering injustice and anarchy. Indeed, in the seventies the bad trends were moving steadily up and the good trends were moving down; abortion, crime, divorce, drug abuse, and venereal disease were on the rise, while test scores, the purchasing power of the dollar, and traditional family values were drastically falling. And of course, the nation’s morale and standard of living were stagnating, even declining. That’s when I came to see that if the average household was suffering, then the country was suffering. Good moral behavior, I realized, is not just the path to a virtuous civil society; it is the prerequisite for economic growth. A healthy society, a healthy economy.

  In other words, America needed once more a firm foundation. It needed a framework for good living; it needed sturdy walls against wickedness. I had felt safe as a girl in Waterloo in the sixties; why did I not feel as safe as a teen in the Twin Cities in the seventies? And yet Minnesota was safer than most parts of America. The problem, then, was national, not local. Something had hardened the heart of America. Our defenses against evil had weakened. Some Americans applauded that weakening, to be sure, and many did their best to ignore it. Yet a few of us wanted to do something about it.