by Linda Byler
Lizzie sighed. Mam made it sound so easy.
“So, Lizzie, if you can’t be gehorsam in small things, how can you expect to be willing to obey God in bigger things?” she concluded.
“You mean that’s what it’s all about?” Lizzie asked.
“Yes. In a way it seems that church rules are all man-made things that God doesn’t care about, but if you look at it in a spiritual sense, they aren’t.”
“What about English people, Mam? How come they can get to heaven so easily and never have to worry about one stitch of their clothes. They polish their fingernails, wear all kinds of beautiful clothes, use make-up, and do their hair, and they never have to worry about obedience and solemnly joining a church with a bunch of rules.”
“They were born into that lifestyle. It isn’t wrong for them. They wouldn’t even think of dressing like we do.”
“It still doesn’t make much sense,” Lizzie said, finishing her tea.
Mandy clattered down the stairs, slumped against the wall on the bench behind the table, and began chewing her fingernails.
“You must be in some terrible mood, chomping down on your fingernails like that,” Lizzie said.
Mandy glared at her before she smiled a bit wryly and confessed about being upset, actually a bit more than that.
“John would have liked to get married next fall, but he thinks I’m too young,” she said.
“Yes, you are too young!” Mam said.
“I’m not too young!” Mandy burst out, her frustration making her eyes look wide and dark.
“I’ll say, Mandy! You’re way, way too young. I would never want to get married this year, and I’m older than you,” Lizzie said, her voice rising.
“Remember, Lizzie, we’re not all alike,” Mandy sang out in a squeaking voice.
So throughout that winter the girls went to church every two weeks and listened closely as Grandpa Glick and the row of solemn ministers explained the way of the cross, of Christ’s suffering, and how to follow his footsteps. The ministers explained to them in minute detail the way they were expected to dress, to behave with decorum, and to learn to be obedient to the rules of the church.
Mostly, Lizzie understood the German phrases and could benefit from the ministers’ words. She clearly grasped the concept of learning to fear God, to come before him with due solemnity, and to respect the admonishments of her elderly grandfather.
There was, however, one thing that bothered her during that summer. In the Light from Heaven book, the one she had read to her pupils, Joseph Armstrong, the main character, went through great personal anxiety. He searched his own soul deeply and felt a certain transformation after he gave his life to God, as did many young people in other books she had read.
She didn’t understand all of this too well. Either the Amish people didn’t believe in having an experience like a new birth, or else they were taught to view their spirituality much the same as they viewed everything else—calmly and stoically accepting—kind of like putting a lid on too much joy, too much sorrow, or too much rejoicing.
Sometimes Lizzie wanted to be like the Baptist churches in the South that she had read about where people shouted and sang and clapped their hands, swaying to the “Glory, Hallelujah!” in their soul. They were rejoicing in the Lord, and Lizzie often felt like crying when she read about their religious experiences. It touched a spot in her heart so that it felt right to rejoice with them.
She felt elated, joyous actually, that Jesus had died for her. Mam always smiled and shook her head in that certain way that meant she knew exactly what Lizzie meant. But Mam also told Lizzie she had to be careful. She told her she could rejoice in other ways than clapping and shouting, like when she was all alone and stepped out of the house on a beautiful spring morning and heard the birds singing and saw the sunrise and the green leaves on the trees.
Lizzie promptly informed Mam that it wasn’t the same if you didn’t have someone thumping on the organ or piano while the people around you sang as loud as they could, just all caught up together in that moment of rejoicing.
Mam’s quiet, “Tsk, tsk,” was her only response, before telling Lizzie she read too much.
“Contentment and continuing the quiet way of life are the virtues I most admire in Amish people,” Lizzie always said. Of course, she wanted to be Amish. She never even thought of not being a part of the Amish way of life. She just wanted to really let loose sometimes.
Being Amish was the only thing she had ever known. She had no real longing to leave her parents, go into the big, wide world, and try to become an English person. That would seem all wrong. Some Amish people did that, so she guessed they were comfortable with that, but she wouldn’t be.
That winter, Lizzie learned in lots of different ways what was expected of her when she became a member of the church. The ministers explained lots of the lessons in the Old Testament, as well as what happened to people when they rebelled openly against God. The ministers also spoke a great deal about the difference Lizzie and her friends would experience when they lived within God’s will, serving God and not idols. That was not hard for Lizzie to believe, and she learned to appreciate the stories in the Old Testament, as well as the words Jesus spoke in the New Testament.
But sometimes Lizzie despaired, overwhelmed by the fear that she would never be good enough to be baptized in the fall.
“I’m not that different than before, Mam,” she repeated sourly as she sat in the kitchen with Mam and Mandy.
“Oh, but you’re making an honest effort, Lizzie. That’s all you can do. Grace supplies everything, really, in the end,” Mam said.
Lizzie eyed her suspiciously. She was just about sure that Mam didn’t always know what she was talking about. For one thing, she claimed “all your own righteousness was like filthy rags in the sight of God,” and yet, all winter they were instructed to live righteously. What sense did that make?
So now if you tried as hard as you could to do good, to live in the way you were instructed, then it was nothing to God, and it all amounted only to grace? So why didn’t people just go out and do what they wanted to? They may as well, if grace took care of everything.
Mam scooped out some cookie batter and dropped it onto the baking sheet, using the back of her hand to brush away a strand of hair from her cheek. Beads of sweat clung to her forehead and the color in her cheeks had heightened as the heat in the kitchen had escalated during the afternoon.
“Mandy, be careful there. You’re trying to put too many cookies on that sheet, all right?” she instructed.
Mandy nodded, pushing up her sleeve with one hand and sending the glass mixing bowl full of batter onto the floor where it smashed into a hundred pieces.
Mam gasped, then sighed impatiently.
“Who’s going to clean it up?” she asked.
Lizzie thought that was an excellent example right there. “Okay, Mam, so why didn’t you get angry and yell at Mandy? You used to when we were little girls. So is that all your own righteousness now, and it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in God’s eyes? That’s what you claim.”
Mam looked sharply at Lizzie, but then she smiled.
“Now there, Lizzie, is the beauty of becoming a Christian. If we are all good and holy, acting righteous and prim and proper so that other people think we are such awfully good Christians, that is filthy rags. But if we live to become more like Jesus, if we just have a desire to be good, he quietly, without our knowing, molds and shapes us into a vessel of his own making, and we aren’t even aware of it. I would never have noticed any difference at all, girls. None.”
“Really? You’re a lot different than you used to be,” Lizzie said.
“And, hopefully, 20 years from now I’ll be so much different than I am now. More patient, more compassionate, not so easy to criticize, oh my, the list could go on and on,” Mam answered.
Lizzie fiddled with a cookie, saying nothing. Now that made a lot of sense. She was beginning to grasp only a bit of wh
at it meant to walk with Jesus. It was as if you were only a lump of raw, gross-looking clay, and through life’s sorrows, disappointments, and trials—just look at Mam, having to move here to this old farm—you were shaped into a vase or a bowl that pleased him. You never knew what he might make out of the rough beginning, she supposed.
Several weeks later, Lizzie and Mandy were baptized on a cold Sunday morning. There was no doubt or fear, no despair or confusion anywhere for Lizzie. She realized one thing as surely as the sun rose and set. She had set her face toward heaven, promising to live and obey within the Amish church, and she believed very sincerely that Jesus Christ was the Son of God.
She also learned, to her surprise, that Amish people were not as unemotional as she thought. She had been to baptisms before, of course, but now that it was her turn, she saw how the adults cried openly, using huge white handkerchiefs to staunch their tears of joy. They were sincerely grateful that more of the young people had come to the knowledge of the truth, Lizzie knew. It was a moment in her life she hoped to remember as long as she lived, tucked away, kept like a precious jewel.
Her tears ran with the water the ministers used to baptize her and became wet spots on her white organdy cape. She heard small, subdued sobs from the women’s side, which was very touching to Lizzie. She guessed Mam and all the aunts and all of the other women in the church must really love the youth who knelt before them. It was a great feeling to know you were accepted into this group of people who had gone before you, setting an example of right and wrong. These people, most of them her family and friends, genuinely cared about her and wanted her to be a part of the growing community of Amish people.
After the service, she ate her bread and cheese, snitz pie, and red beets with the rest of the church just as she did each Sunday. But she knew there was a difference this Sunday. She was now a sister in the church, her sins were forgiven, she was washed clean, and she would learn to apply her faith to the temptations and trials she encountered along life’s way. Maybe she was only a shaky new Christian, but she would certainly try as hard as she could. Everyone was just going to have to have patience with her, because, after all, Mam was pretty old when she quit yelling at them.
Chapter 4
THAT WINTER BROUGHT THE usual snow, frigid temperatures, and ice, which meant skating, tobogganing, and even sleigh rides across the snowy fields. It was one of Lizzie’s favorite seasons, and she looked forward to spending time with Stephen and her friends who were now all dating. That winter was a time of relaxing in her lasting friendship with Stephen, a time of contentment and happiness which seemed to radiate through to the children at school. She loved teaching and being outdoors playing sports, almost as much during the week with her pupils as she did on the weekends.
Lizzie decided that the children needed to go skating one more time before the thaw set in and the ice melted. Lizzie announced one morning that the school would take an afternoon at the pond, if the students earned 100 perfect scores on their work.
Every 100% grade, no matter which age group or subject, was carefully recorded with a stroke of the chalk on the farthest left-hand corner of the large blackboard. When they recorded the hundredth 100%, the entire school would go skating.
Lizzie smiled to herself as little heads bent to their goal of 100%. The classroom became so quiet and well-ordered that Lizzie heard the wall clock’s homey ticking. Little eyebrows were lowered in their focusing and tongues were bitten as erasers appeared. Students diligently erased work that was not good enough to achieve the prize. Hands held heads and twirled straying hair in concentration. Dictionaries were pulled from the back shelf and put to earnest use by students who normally would have chosen the faster, easier route of guessing when they were unsure of an answer.
She loved her teaching job so much at times like this. Dear hearts, so innocent, responding to such a small prize. It almost didn’t seem fair. Lizzie loved ice-skating, and yet she didn’t need to work for it the way her pupils did. After about 10 days, Lizzie drew the hundredth stroke with a flourish, turning to her pupils.
“Very good! I do think the first grade contributed almost half of them! It’s just wonderful, first grade! Good job,” she said.
Anticipation ran high the following morning, as the pupils brought extra food in their lunchboxes. Thermoses of hot chocolate and a large container for water were set on the sleds, cushioned with old quilts. A toboggan, for the little ones, was carefully lined with buggy robes.
Two older boys, Amos and Ben, went ahead of the group, pulling a sled loaded with a box of firewood and newspapers for the fire they would build next to the pond. The upper-grade students would stay warm all day, eventually shedding mittens, coats, and scarves as they heated up from the exertion of skating. But the little ones grew tired and cold, even crying that their poor little feet felt as if they were frozen.
Lizzie bundled up, placing a whistle in her coat pocket. She blew the whistle only when absolutely necessary, but it never failed that some errant person drove her to blowing the whistle as hard as she could. The disobedient person had to sit on a bale of straw for 15 minutes.
The day was sunny, the warmth of it promising spring. The air, however, was still wintry, swirling bits of loose snow across their faces as they bent to walk up the hill, then down the other side toward the pond. The day was so bright, Lizzie squinted against the glare of the snow. She wished she could wear her black sunglasses, but that would seem a bit gros-feelich, or conceited, she feared.
Mandy said those big black sunglasses didn’t look quite right with an Amish covering, which was something to consider. But the truth was, they made Lizzie feel sort of cool, almost like former President John Kennedy’s wife, Jacqueline. She admired that woman so much, and secretly, when she wore those sunglasses, she felt the way Jackie Kennedy looked. Oh, well, no sunglasses today. She was a teacher who commanded respect, and she needed to remain in control.
The pond loomed ahead, a bit grayer than the snow. The top of the ice was not perfectly smooth. There were skaters’ marks all over it, and bits of snow, straw, and wood ashes left from other skaters on earlier evenings.
The boys soon had the fire started. They put their skates on and slid across the ice, pushing the scrapers. Scrapers were homemade bits of aluminum fastened to broom handles that smoothed the ice on the frozen pond.
As the boys worked, Lizzie helped the little ones tie their skates, arranged quilts on straw bales, and stoked the fire. Then she sat on a bale of straw and squinted into the sun as the pond became alive with black-garbed figures flying across it, looping and swerving, in a sort of intricate dance.
She decided to drink a cup of hot chocolate before lacing up her skates. There was just something about a steaming cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter day, Lizzie thought, that made your heart so cozy you could hardly stand it. It felt like the softest cashmere scarf around your stomach, soothing it and warming your whole body until you felt fluffy all over.
Hot chocolate tasted even better with a chocolate chip cookie to dip into it. Chocolate chip cookies were funny things, though. They were almost a staple in an Amish child’s lunchbox. All the mothers made chocolate chip cookies. They made molasses cookies and whoopie pies and snickerdoodles and raisin cookies, too, but the most popular was always chocolate chip.
But chocolate chip cookies were as unpredictable as the weather. Each mother had a different recipe. Some cookies were hard as a rock, but they were the best to dip in hot chocolate.
Others were high and dry and, the minute they hit that creamy liquid, dissolved into a warm mushy mess. You couldn’t get them to your open mouth fast enough before they disintegrated and landed in the bottom of the cup. If you were lucky, a few chocolate chips floated to the top, and you could at least rescue them.
Aunt Becca’s chocolate chip cookies were the best, hands down, Lizzie thought. They were firm and chewy and a tiny bit overbaked. If you broke one in half, you could hold it in the hot chocolate for a l
ong time, and then lift it to your mouth with style and grace.
Lizzie never did, though. She just wolfed them down, dripping hot chocolate on the front of her coat. She was dismayed to find that she had already eaten four cookies and probably could have eaten four more.
Sally and Dorothy giggled, sitting beside her on the bale of straw.
“Are you hungry?” Sally ventured.
“Mmm-hmm!” Lizzie said emphatically.
“You ate a bunch of cookies!” Dorothy said, giggling.
“I’ll go skating now and work them off,” Lizzie said, smiling down at Dorothy.
Energized, she quickly laced up her white figure skates, hit the ice running, and with swift strokes soon caught up with the upper-graders who were already organizing a game of “freeze tag.”
That was a game they never tired of playing. When the students who were “It” caught someone, that person had to stand at the very spot where he or she was caught. That student was guarded by those who were “It,” while the others tried to dart in and free him or her.
As the sun climbed toward noon, hats and scarves, stocking caps and mittens were flung off near the fire. The owners skated off as fast as they could before being caught. The students dodged, twirled, and sprang away from each other until they were all gasping for breath, their cheeks red from the cold and exertion.
After lunch, the boys were allowed to play hockey, but they had to leave an area of the pond for the girls and smaller children. All afternoon, Lizzie taught the girls how to gracefully skate backward and in a circle, lifting one foot over the other, distributing weight onto the inside skate so that the skater naturally turned in a circle. The girls practiced, fell down, laughed hard, sat on the ice and talked, drank more hot chocolate, and kept trying.