The summer after eighth grade passed fairly uneventfully. It was filled with the usual Bible study/pool parties, church youth camp, and choir tour. That summer we also moved into our brand new house on the south side of town. Mom and dad had drawn up the plans themselves and had the house of their dreams built. "It's reminiscent of Colonial Williamsburg," mom would say wistfully. It was four thousand square feet of grey siding, raised dormers, wrap-around porch, and American Colonialism in a gated community. It also had a pool. I was allowed to get my first two-piece that summer. But strictly for use in the back yard when we did not have male guests over to the house.
Before I knew it, it was time to go back to school. Ninth grade. I was officially in high school. And at Heritage Christian School, being in ninth grade was a big deal. And as new high school students, we were reminded that the younger children were looking to us to lead the way as good examples. "To whom much is given, much is required," our headmasters reminded us.
The regimented Christian school prided itself on producing excellent Christian citizens of high moral character. We were taught the rudiments of the Christian faith through the words of history of our great country's founding fathers day in and day out. We memorized the preamble to the constitution and we poured over works by Thomas Payne. We lugged around huge volumes of historical writings and analyzed them and tried to decipher God's original plan for our great nation, before the waters got muddied by liberals, democrats, and feminists.
Our ninth grade class was small, and we were very close. Most of our waking moments were spent with friends-- at football games, at sleep overs, at birthday parties, and at church. Even if we didn't all attend the same churches because we lived in different parts of town, our families all held the same beliefs, and our churches even went to camps together. So our social circles were tight. Our lives were intertwined on many levels.
Ninth grade was underway and going just swimmingly. And winter was upon us.
Oklahoma is brutally cold in February-- when it's not pretending to be springtime. Sunday mornings we routinely hectic at our house. Dad left early, usually before my sister and I woke up, because he preached both the 8:30 and 10:30 services at the Baptist church where he pastored. Dani and I would wake blurry-eyed at 7:30 secretly wishing we could sleep in, but never daring to mention it. It wasn't an option. Since the day I was born, I had been to church every time the doors were open-- Sunday morning Sunday school and service, Wednesday night service, and any other special events that fell in between. Dad had been a pastor for as long as I could remember. First in Arkansas, where I was born, then in Texas for a few years, and then in Oklahoma where I had lived since I was seven.
Everyone at church always made jokes about how stressful Sunday mornings seemed to be, getting the whole family presentable and ready to go to God's House (dad liked to joke that God lived in the auditorium behind the baptistery), and our family was really no different. There were showers to be taken, hair to be done, dresses to be ironed and put on, breakfast to be eaten, and all done in time to arrive at Sunday School, Bibles in hand, at 9 a.m.
This Sunday morning was particularly cold, so I put on the black pea coat and red gloves mom had bought me earlier in the winter and went downstairs to wait in the car until Dani was ready to go and we could leave. Dani was always running late. Even at eleven years old it took her more than an hour to do her hair and pick out what she was going to wear. She was late, but she was extremely proud of the fact she had perfect attendance at both Sunday School and school. One morning we sat in the car in the driveway for thirteen minutes waiting on her to finish doing her hair so we could leave for school. Mom told her that if she was not ready to go on time the next morning, we would leave her at home and she wouldn't be able to go to school. And mom had that tone. When she meant business, you knew it. You didn't test mom. Dani was in the car waiting for us the next morning when it was time to go.
We made the fifteen minute drive from the south side of Oklahoma City to Moore and pulled into the parking lot of the massive First Baptist Church just in time.
That summer I was fourteen. I was feeling better about myself. I had grown out of those awkward sixth and seventh grade years, where I cut my hair so short I looked like a boy. And mom and dad had shelled out the money for braces to correct my severely bucked teeth.
"Ashly, when I was pregnant with you, I heard sucking sounds coming out of my belly. You sucked your thumb even in the womb! It's no wonder your teeth are so crooked!" Mom had tried endlessly to get me to stop sucking my thumb and to no avail. Nights before I went to bed, she painted a terrible thin coat of something repulsive tasting on my thumb in hopes it would keep me from sucking it. I peeled the film off within minutes of turning the lights out. Some kids had a blanky; I had my thumb. Until I was about twelve years old when I just magically quit one day. I guess I grew out of it, but I still had the buck teeth to show for it.
But the braces were working. My teeth were going straight, my hair had grown out and I'd grown about four inches in the last year. My legs went on for miles. That was the year I discovered the struggle of trying to find tall length pants. But I wasn't complaining, because when I went back to school that year, I noticed the boys looking at me differently than they had just the year before.
Our girls Bible study group at church started a study on Passion and Purity by Elizabeth Elliot. We were learning to be women of virtue. Women of quiet strength and purity. After each chapter in the book, I chronicled my thoughts in a journal. I would write prayers to God for my future husband. To make him strong a vocal leader and man of integrity who would be the head of my household. I would submit myself fully to him. I prayed for him even though I didn't know him. God was molding him for me. And in His divine plan, according to His will, one day He would bring us together.
As one might infer from the title, the book was about feeling passionately about a man but still remaining sexually pure until we were finally joined by the sacred bonds of marriage. I penned in my journal:
Girls who had sex before they were married were used goods to be picked over. They were worth less, not whole, bargains. I vowed to keep myself pure until God gave me the husband He had prepared for me.
That summer my friends and I all signed True Love Waits pledge cards that we gave to our dads to keep and give back to us on our wedding days. Which we all assumed would come after we graduated from the local baptist college where we met our pastor-in-training husbands.
I live in a two story house on Hillside Lane in Dallas, Texas. I sit at the desk in my second floor office and stare out the picture window onto a beautiful lush, green golf course in our backyard. And I can see into my neighbor's kitchen when they have the blinds open. And I can watch the branches on the huge trees outside dance in the wind, and I can hear the whoosh of the cars speeding down the freeway a mile away. If the music's not up too loud, I can hear my husband when he pulls in the driveway coming home from work. I beat him home most days, since the high school where I teach English is just down the road from our house.
I look around this place with all its peace and its comforts, and I wonder how I got here. Fifteen years ago, I would have never thought a life like this was possible. Fifteen years ago I didn't know if I'd still be living in fifteen years.