The Calling of Emily Evans

by Janette Oke

  There was a moment of silence.

  “How’s school?” her father asked again.

  This time Emily lifted her eyes and looked directly into his warm brown ones, now crinkled with interest and concern.

  “Fine,” she answered evenly.“I like it.”

  He nodded and his work-worn hands laid the newspaper in his lap.“You’ve been keeping well?”

  Emily was about to nod in agreement when she remembered a bout with the flu that had kept her in bed for three days, and the last cold that bothered her for a week.

  “Mostly,” she said honestly.

  “Are you takin’ your cod-liver oil?”

  The very mention of it caused Emily’s pert little nose to wrinkle up, but she nodded vigorously.

  “Good! You look a little peaked.”

  “Peaked” was one of her father’s favorite words. He referred to any one of his children as being “a little peaked” whenever illness struck.

  “I’m fine,” Emily insisted.

  “Got a good roommate?” was the next question.

  “Ruth. She’s great. I really like her. I just wish I could be more like her,” Emily said sincerely.

  “Nothin’ wrong with you,” her father was quick to assure her, and Emily flushed with the simplicity of his appraisal.

  “Any special fellas?” asked Mr. Evans, and Emily’s head lifted in time to catch the twinkle in his eyes.

  She smiled slowly, then shook her head. She knew that Ross really didn’t count. He still seemed to be carrying a torch for Olive, even though Olive responded positively and then ignored him, by turn.

  She shook her head.“No one special to me—in that way,” she admitted.

  “Will Pearson still asks about you,” Mr. Evans said, causing Emily to blush. Will Pearson had been asking about Emily for too many years. He was much older than she—nine years, in fact, and he had been living with false hope for a long time. Emily had no interest in Will Pearson, even if he did own his own farm.

  “He thinks it a bit foolish that I favored you gettin’ Bible learning.

  Seeing as how girls aren’t preachers and all.”

  Emily lifted a stubborn chin.“Some girls are,” she argued, as though Will Pearson were right in the room.“We’ve had women in chapel who are. They came with their preacher husbands. Both of them. Mrs. Witt, the district superintendent’s wife, she can preach, too.”

  Mr. Evans looked surprised.“Women preachers? Never heard of it.”

  “Well, you can just tell Will Pearson the next time he asks that there are women preachers—aplenty.”

  Emily’s chin lifted higher. What right had Will Pearson to dictate the role of women anyway?

  Mr. Evans was quite intrigued by the news.“Ordained?” he asked, and Emily had to quickly think about what he was asking.

  “No,” she answered slowly.“Not ordained. But they preach—and they help in the church. And they lead people to the Lord, too.”

  “If they aren’t ordained, how can they run a church?”

  “They have a special—a special position. The denomination even gives them papers. It says right there that they are approved to minister.”

  “Do they do everything? Everything that a man preacher does?” queried her father.

  “No-o,” Emily had to admit.“They can’t do things like marry or bury. Or baptize. Things like that.”

  “But they preach?” queried her father, scarcely believing that a woman could be placed in such a role.

  “They preach,” Emily assured him.“Mostly when their husbands have to be away. But Rev. and Mrs. Jackson—they take turns, Sunday by Sunday.”

  It seemed preposterous to Emily’s father.“Well, I don’t guess I’d care much to have a daughter of mine bein’ a preacher—even if her husband was,” went on Mr. Evans.“Seems to me that one preacher in a household is quite enough.” He thought for a moment and then spoke again, quietly.“Not sure I’d want to be listenin’ to a woman either, come to think of it.” Emily wasn’t sure if the words were meant for her or were just a quiet expression of the way her father felt.

  “I think—I think—” and then Emily hesitated. Was she breaking a confidence? Her father looked at her, waiting for her to go on.

  “I think Ruth might like to be one,” she said at last, speaking barely above a whisper.“She hasn’t said so yet, but she loves to study and says that she would love to preach. She just wants to teach and preach. She can hardly wait for her turn to share in chapel or at prayer meetings.”

  But Emily’s father was shaking his head.

  “Must be a strange one,” he observed and then rose from his chair, signaling that it was time for them to put out the light and retire for the night.

  Chapter Four

  A Call

  Emily arrived back at school with new resolve. She had no intention of going home to Jamestown and marrying Will Pearson—whether he was still waiting for her or not!

  Several times she recalled the conversation with her father and realized that she did not share some of her parent’s views. She believed a woman could join with her husband to serve in the role of church leadership. Emily began to secretly think that she would be honored if the Lord would favor her with a preacher-husband so that they could serve Him together. She began to look at her male classmates in a different way. Which ones would make good preachers? Which ones might answer a call from God to serve? Emily had never evaluated fellows in such a fashion before. But as she observed, she soon became convinced that Ross, for all his good looks and magic charm, would not be the man for her, even if he hadn’t been smitten by the elusive Olive. Ross just was not preacher material, in Emily’s estimation.

  Carl was a bit too unsettled, a bit too frivolous to make a preacher. Fred, of course, would make a first-rate preacher—but Fred already had a lady friend by the name of Agatha. And comparing Fred with herself, Emily felt inadequate and lacking in spiritual depth. She would never be able to measure up as Fred’s wife. She wondered silently if Agatha could.

  Robert was not even considered a possibility. He was just too silly—too insincere. Emily was sure that even God would be hard put to make much out of Robert.

  Morris was headed for the mission field—and by all appearances he planned to go alone. Morris did not even seem to realize that girls were a part of the world.

  Lacey, with his huge frame and boisterousness, was easily scratched from Emily’s list as well. God would have to do a lot of polishing before Lacey could be ready to serve Him.

  One by one each of Emily’s fellow students was assessed and found wanting in one area or another. There just didn’t seem to be anyone in her class who was right for Emily. Oh, she certainly knew young men with sterling qualities, but those whom Emily might have selected were already attached to someone else, or had stated their intentions of going back to the family farm or on for secular training. Emily couldn’t see much future for her in the current prospects.

  Yet the insistent desire to serve the Lord continued to fill her thoughts.“What can I do, Lord?” she kept asking in her daily prayers.“I have no place of service, no particular skills, and no one with whom to share a call.”

  In her devotional reading, scripture passages such as “Calling the twelve to him, he sent them out two by two” seemed to leap off the page and burn themselves into her heart. What did it all mean?

  Emily did not wait patiently for the answer. She chafed inwardly, posed hard questions in class, sought counsel from fellow students, and listened intently in the worship services.

  It wasn’t until her first Bible school year had almost ended that Emily received her answer. Rev. and Mrs. Paul Witt, the district superintendent and his wife, were visiting chapel. Emily sat on the edge of her seat, her hands clasped into nervous knots in her lap, her hazel eyes opened wide with intensity.

  “We have countless areas open to us,” Rev. Witt was saying.“Places where they are begging us to come and start a church, and we
have no one to send. God does not call us to sit idly by while the people perish. He has called us to go—to give—to preach the Gospel.”

  Emily could not help stealing a glance at the men’s side of the chapel. Surely many of them would be profoundly moved and anxious to answer the call to serve.

  “We need to be willing to obey His voice as He speaks to us. Where are the men who are willing to bridge the gap—to answer, ‘Here am I. Send me’? For how can they hear without a preacher? How can they preach except they be sent? We, as a denomination, are here to send you forth. We are here to back and support you. We are here to help you to obey God’s call—to take up your cross and follow Him.”

  Is he speaking only to the men here? The question suddenly flashed through Emily’s mind. She looked around her and caught Ruth’s eye, then turned her attention back to the speaker.

  “I urge you, if He is speaking to your heart, obey His voice—follow His leading today. Come. Come acknowledge His call on your life. Come forward and kneel here at the altar of prayer. Offer up your life as a sacrifice of love and obedience to the Lord who loves you. Who died for your salvation. Come. That others too might know the joy of knowing God.”

  Fred Russell was the first to move forward. Morris Soderquist was close behind him. And then, to Emily’s surprise, Lacey Beckett was moving quickly toward the altar, tears on his round cheeks.

  And then Emily could bear the intensity of the feeling in her heart no longer. With a sob in her throat, she hastily rose and practically ran to the altar railing where she knelt down and unashamedly buried a tear-streaked face in her clasped hands.

  The answer had come. If God had no helpmate with whom she could share His call, she would go alone. It was as simple as that. Will Pearson might think it impossible for a woman to preach, but Emily knew otherwise. Hadn’t she heard God’s call? Hadn’t He promised all of His children that He would be with them? Of course! Of course God could call a woman to serve. Emily had no idea just where and how—but she did know that her heart yearned to be of service to God.

  “Yes, Lord. Yes,” she prayed silently.“I’ll go. Wherever you want me—I’ll go.”

  A strange peace settled over her heart. She had been obedient.

  She was committed to Christ and to the goal of serving Him. She was only a girl, but God would be with her. He would lead her. Emily was sure of that.

  Emily later learned that she had not been the only young woman at the altar. Ruth had, as Emily would have expected, joined those at the altar as well. Ruth, too, had answered God’s call to serve Him—maybe even to preach.

  After the altar service was over, the good Rev. Witt spoke softly to those who had stepped forward. As Emily lifted her swollen, red eyes and looked shyly about her, she was surprised to see seven of her classmates on the front benches.

  Rev. Witt went slowly down the row, speaking to each person by name.

  “Why are you here, Mr. Russell?”

  Fred answered without hesitation.“I feel called to serve.”

  “And where would God have you serve?”

  Fred shook his head.“It matters not,” he answered just as firmly.

  “I will serve wherever my church places me.”

  The district superintendent smiled and nodded in agreement.

  “And you, Mr. Soderquist?” he went on.

  “God called me to the mission field when I was a boy,” answered Morris with a trembling voice.“I came forward today to publicly testify to that calling.”

  Again the superintendent nodded.

  “And you, Mr. Beckett?”

  But Lacey Beckett could not readily answer. He was still weeping with the enormity of his conviction that he was called to serve.

  Rev. Witt passed on. Emily felt a quiver go all through her body. She was next.

  “What about you, Miss Evans?”

  “God has called me to—to serve Him—somewhere—in some—some new church. I—I don’t know where,” Emily responded.

  “God will show us where,” the good man said with confidence, and the tears streamed down Emily’s face again. She had been accepted. As simply as that, she had been accepted to minister for the Lord, to preach.

  The superintendent heard testimony from each of the other students. Occasionally he stopped to praise God or to wipe his eyes with his handkerchief before continuing on.

  Emily was filled with emotion at the intensity of this time. Surely great things would happen as a result of the day’s chapel service. Eight more servants! Eight more to serve her God!

  And then the service was dismissed and Emily was free to embrace her roommate and share in the excitement of being called.

  All that week Emily walked on air. She was actually going to serve God in a new work—somewhere. Even now she was preparing herself for that service. She would prepare herself well. She needed to thoroughly know the Word. She would be sharing that Word with hungry people Sunday after Sunday.

  And then, unbidden, a new thought came to Emily. She remembered the late nights—the stolen minutes after lights out and the jumping into bed under false pretenses to fool the preceptress. Surely God could not honor such actions. She was smitten with conviction, and tears stung her eyes. She had to make things right before she could go one step farther. She had to confess her sin and ask for forgiveness. Maybe they will refuse me an assignment someplace when they know how deceitful I’ve been, she thought, her heart constricting with fear.

  Reluctantly Emily placed one heavy foot before the other as she made her way to the office of Miss Herrington. She dreaded the stern look she no doubt would encounter in those sharp gray eyes. She could picture the pointed nose lifting slightly, and the lips pursed in a thin, tight line, expressing displeasure. Miss Herrington was a kind, godly woman, but Emily knew the preceptress did not have much patience with disobedience. Timidly Emily knocked at the door and was told to enter.

  “Miss Herrington?” she addressed her dean hesitantly.

  “Miss Evans,” the woman responded, smiling pleasantly.“Come in. Do come in.”

  Emily closed the door behind her.

  “You can’t imagine how pleased we all are that you have presented yourself for service,” the woman went on, beaming at Emily.

  Emily’s smile was shaky in return.

  “Well, yes, I—”

  “Have you had the opportunity to share your good news with your family?”

  “No-o,” Emily admitted and again remembered the discussion with her father. She wondered if her father would deem the “call” good news.

  “You haven’t written?”

  “Well, no-o. I’m to go home this weekend. I thought that I’d rather—rather tell them firsthand.”

  The preceptress smiled.“Of course,” she said.“It is always nicer to share those things in person.”

  The woman looked searchingly at Emily and seemed to sense that something was troubling her.

  “Can I be of help in some way?” she asked solicitously.

  Tears gathered in Emily’s eyes.

  “I—I have a confession,” she admitted.

  The smile left but the eyes still held softness.

  “Go on,” the woman urged.

  “I—I haven’t always been to bed on time. I—I mean I have studied after—after lights out. I—I’m rather slow—I mean in my studies. I need to spend much longer studying than Ruth, and so I—I—”

  Then Emily finished lamely, “I broke the rules.”

  “But your light was always out when I came around for bed check,” the woman puzzled.

  Emily’s face felt hot.“I—I would put the light out when I heard the stair step squeak,” she admitted.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “I see,” said the preceptress slowly.

  “And—and on occasion, I—I got back up and put the light on again—after all was quiet, so I could study some more,” Emily admitted.“I—I even laid my rolled-up.”

  More silence. Then M
iss Herrington commented, “I have watched your grades. You have been doing well.”

  “But I wouldn’t have—without studying,” Emily assured her, her words tumbling over each other.“I have always found learning more—more difficult than some. Even in grade school I had to work harder than Ina or even Annabelle—my sisters. I—”

  “Miss Evans,” the preceptress interrupted softly, “do you understand why we have the ‘lights out’ rule?”

  “Yes.” Emily’s voice trembled.

  “Why?”

  “So that we get the proper rest.”

  “Correct. Lights out is not some casually contrived policy. Lights out is for your benefit. But that is not all. It is for the benefit of the total student body—so that you do not pass on an illness to the rest. You are cheating yourself when you break the rules. And perhaps endangering your fellow students.”

  Emily had not considered that before.

  “You have been remarkably free of sickness this winter—but your faculty has been praying for you week by week.”

  Emily’s eyes widened. She had no idea that her health was the subject of faculty prayers.

  “Perhaps God has seen fit to answer those prayers in spite of your disobedience.” Miss Herrington’s gentle tone took some of the sting out of the words.“Because—because,” she went on, “He saw a girl who wanted to get all she could from her studies.”

  Emily blinked.

  “But,” continued the preceptress, “one should not press, or be presumptuous, with God.”

  Emily wondered if the preceptress had been on the verge of saying “press one’s luck.” In spite of her mortification over the interview, she found it hard to suppress a smile.

  “From now on, I shall expect you to be in bed at the proper hour.”

  “Yes, Miss Herrington,” agreed Emily in a subdued tone.

  “If you need to have more study time, we will try to find some other way for you to manage it.”

  The kindness and consideration of the older woman surprised Emily. She had not expected such understanding.

  Emily’s eyes brimmed again. She felt more chastised than if she had been assigned further kitchen duty or soundly scolded for her crime.