Love

Earl’s arms around me assured me that I was OK. After work the night before I’d gone to his apartment and told him I was going to The Caravan. He said, “If you drink too much call me.”

I didn’t drink too much, and I didn’t have a good time. The usual raucous crowd didn’t draw me in as I sat by myself at the bar nursing a warm Budweiser. Anger seethed through my veins. I had changed. What do I do now?

When I saw Earl the next day, I burst into tears and said, “I wish I had just gone home last night.” He wrapped his arms around me and said, “I love you.” He had spoken those words to me before, but as I calmed down, he looked into my eyes and continued, “Will you marry me?”

“Yes. Yes. Yes!” I wanted to get married right away, but Earl insisted we wait a respectable time. We set the date for December 29, and shopped for my wedding gown and my engagement ring together.

We found my gown at the first bridal shop on our list! White lace covered the simple white gown and formed elbow-length sleeves. I tried it on and it fit perfectly. The “V” neckline lengthened my already long neck. The bodice fit my small chest and the skirt was long enough that I wouldn’t need to have it altered. I turned around and around looking at my reflection in the room of mirrors. I felt like a princess in a fairy tale.

Shopping for my ring happened the same way. I saw exactly what I wanted at the first jewelry counter. “This is it.”

Saturday afternoon, December 29, 1985 my sister, Bobbi, nervously helped me put my gown on and checked my hair and makeup. My friend, Demita, came in and said, “Let’s go upstairs now.” She directed me to the sanctuary entrance. She settled my veil in place before slipping into a back pew.

I nervously peeked into the sanctuary and saw Earl and our pastor, John, standing at the altar. When the Wedding March began, I stepped into the sanctuary. My bouquet shivered and my mind whirled as I made my way to my future husband. I focused on Earl’s blue eyes. How had I missed the love they held for me?

John opened the service by reading 1 Corinthians 13, the Love Chapter. We quietly repeated our vows, exchanged our rings, and John said, “Earl you may kiss your bride.” He did so with a grin that matched mine—from ear to ear. John presented us, “Reverend and Mrs. Earl Dickerson.”

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:5-8 NIV).

In Christ,

Berta

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Earl Would Tell You

Earl would tell you how angry I was when we were introduced.

Sitting at the nurses’ station one afternoon I saw him. Tall with dark wavy hair and wearing a blue lab coat, he was walking away down the hall. 

I leaned toward the nurse I was working with and said, “Ralph, do you see that guy?”

“Yeah?”

“I’d like to go out with him.” Now, I never dated men I worked with, and I guarded my private life at work. My heart skipped a few beats. How could I think this, let alone say it out loud.

“Haven’t you met Earl? He’s the chaplain,” Ralph said.

Raising my hands as a shield, I said, “Chaplain? Never mind! I don’t want anything to do with a preacher.” There was no room in my life for a Jesus freak to tell me how to live.

When Earl came back up the hall Ralph called him over, “Earl, this is Bert.”

Earl looked me in the eye, “Hi.”

“Hi.” I looked away. How am I supposed to talk to a chaplain?

Earl worked days and I worked afternoons, and he began calling and inviting me to eat supper with him in the cafeteria. We talked. I told him about my three-year-old daughter, Kari. I tried to explain why I’d left her with her father when we divorced but couldn’t. I filled him in on my nightly escapades at The Caravan—my bar. Maybe I was trying to shock him, but I learned he grew up in North Memphis and had his own stories to tell.

He was a seminary student at Candler School of Theology of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He was doing an internship in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) there at Methodist Hospital Central in Memphis. I didn’t know what any of that was, and I didn’t ask.

Early in my shift one afternoon in late August, Earl came to see me without calling. “Can you come out by the elevators for a minute?” he asked. We stood alone, “My internship is over and I’m going back to seminary.”

With my arms folded over my chest I asked, “When are you leaving?”

“My car is already packed and ready to pull out. I wanted to say good-bye.”

“When are you coming back?”

“I haven’t decided whether or not I am coming back.”

We hugged for the first time. A moment. And he got on the elevator and was gone.

I didn’t understand what I felt as I remembered his arms around me. The dam burst and tears poured from eyes that had been dry for many years. I told myself I didn’t care about him.

In Christ,

Bert(a)

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I Can’t Kiss a Preacher

Earl and I talked as we ate supper together several times a week at the hospital where we worked. A year flew by and I hadn’t thought much about our relationship until he surprised me one evening, “Would you go out with me?”

“Are you crazy? No.”

I’ve told him so much. How can he like me?

A month later, he asked again, “Will you go out with me?”

Reluctantly I agreed and on a hot July evening in 1985, I sat waiting for Earl in the hospital parking lot. (I wouldn’t tell him where I lived.) My palms were sweaty and when I saw his baby-blue Thunderbird, I caught my breath. I still couldn’t believe I was going on a date with a preacher. I’d even had my hair done and was wearing the only dress I owned.

Earl got out and held the door for me. My voice cracked as I said, “Hi.”

“Hi.”

We ate at The 91st Bomb Group restaurant on the Memphis airport flight line. (Earl remembered that I liked to fly.) Supper went well then we sat in the lounge and watched the runway and airplane lights as planes took off and landed.

We were unusually quiet for us on the trip back to the hospital. He parked next to my car, turned and asked, “Can I kiss you?”

“No!” I pulled away.

I can’t kiss a preacher. I’m too bad.

My exposure to religion happened at a vacation Bible school when I was in elementary school. Classmates laughed at my reading skills and giggled when I sang off tune. One girl said, “You can’t be baptized in my church.” I believed her words and knew I couldn’t be good enough to be a Christian.

What did it take to rescue me twenty-some years later?

Love.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Corinthians 13:5-7 NIV).

God loved me before He created me. Earl loved me from the first time we met, through my full salvation and continuing to this day.

God’s patience shown through Earl’s kindness. It poured from his heart every time I cursed. He never called me down unless I used God’s name in vain.

God’s word says, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes” (Ephesians 6:10, 11 NIV). Earl never gave up his “Christian” music—or anything else—no matter how much I protested.

God had laid me on many hearts and those people prayed diligently for my faith walk. (I’d made a profession of faith and been baptized before we married—because I thought a preachers wife should be baptized.)

God’s Son died that I could have everlasting life. Earl lived his faith before me and showed me unconditional love.

Earl trusted God’s word for my redemption. “The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does” (Psalm 145:13 NIV).

I realized years ago that God had sent Earl to me, just as He now sends me to others. An important way of thanking God is by passing it on to others

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19, 20 NIV).

In Christ,

Berta

berta.dickerson@gmail.com

http://snapshots-bertad.blogspot.com