Author Janet Streed - Lashed by Storms, Chapter 1

Chapter One

The Conversation - May 2015

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1

“Can you imagine what our kids would be like? Won’t it be amazing when we do get to see them someday in heaven? I bet our daughter will have your beautiful smile.”

Her husband had initiated a long-overdue conversation, one that made Anne’s heart happy. But why now?

When the three, most likely four miscarriages had occurred early in their marriage, Anne couldn’t understand Mike’s refusal to talk.

All she had wanted from him was the same attention he had shown her when they were dating; then he was always quick to listen and to comfort her by wrapping his strong arms around her.

Those arms had always made her feel loved and cherished.

Now she looked at Mike, the man who had pursued her all those years ago. Slim rays of sun filtered through the rain-streaked windows of his 2012 pickup truck, warming the tops of her legs through her denim jeans. Their eyes met, and in the reflection of his sunglasses, she noticed her ear-to-ear grin matched his. She realized the losses of their children at birth had truly impacted Mike after all.

She waited for him to continue.

“Can you imagine, Anne, what it would be like if we were raising all six kids? Our lives are crazy enough with Noah and Aaron, let alone four more!”

Childhood Dreams

Six children. As a little girl playing house, Anne dreamed of raising six little ones. It was a dream she was still carrying when she and Mike met on the campus of Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana. Mike and his girlfriend, plus Anne and her boyfriend, piled into a car with two other couples. They were headed to a party co-sponsored by Mike’s fraternity and Anne’s sorority.

Anne’s boyfriend was driving the crowded car. Thanks to her petite five-foot-two frame, she found herself in the back seat on Mike’s lap. Eventually, Mike broke up with his girlfriend, and Anne broke up with her boyfriend. This new situation proved ideal for the two to get to know each other better.

They quickly learned they had a lot in common, especially their love of the outdoors.

“Mike was busy with medical studies, and I was determined to pursue a degree in psychology. Our schoolwork left little time for socializing, but when we did go out, we didn’t do the usual dinner-and-a-movie routine. We wanted to enjoy everything the outdoors offered.

“One Saturday afternoon, when we went spelunking with Mike’s brothers, I learned Mike was interested in me and not in the girls I had been trying to set him up with. My heart seemed to skip a beat when he made a deliberate move in the darkness of the cave to firmly grab hold of my hand.”

A few weeks after the spelunking outing, Anne and Mike attended a school dance. Mike suddenly bent his six-foot frame and planted a kiss on Anne’s cheek. Caught off guard, she heard a voice saying this was the man she was to marry.

She knew that voice. It belonged to God.

“I was shocked Mike had kissed me. I just knew everyone in the room had heard God say he was the man I was to marry. I remember looking around, certain everyone had stopped dancing. No one was acting differently, but that wasn’t enough to keep my cheeks from feeling hot and red. I ran out of the room as fast as my size-seven dress shoes would allow.

“I couldn’t think about marrying Mike.”

For the next two weeks, Anne deliberately avoided Mike. She refused to see him. She refused to take his calls. She couldn’t—not after hearing God say he was the man she was going to marry. She couldn’t think about marriage—not to Mike, not to anyone.

“Oh, it wasn’t because I didn’t like Mike. There was plenty to like about him. Besides loving anything outdoors, we shared the same values, including our faith. I had come to love Mike’s wicked sense of humor, and I had to admit, that for a guy, he had a good-looking pair of legs.

        “But there was something more. When I felt down or needed to talk, Mike would listen. And then he’d wrap those strong arms of his around me and comfort me. He made me feel loved and safe.
    “But marriage? I couldn’t think about that. And Mike hadn’t actually proposed. I remembered what the Bible said about marriage.
        “What therefore God has joined together . . .”

Anne justified deliberately pulling back from Mike. All she could think about was her parents’ marriage.

Mom and Dad

Anne’s mother, Marjorie Burton, who preferred people call her Margie, worked as a charge nurse, and her dad, John William Rogers, was an aircraft engineer for Detroit Diesel. The two enjoyed some good years early in their marriage. But the love and security they provided Anne and her siblings were ripped out from under them when their mother’s drug addiction led to her filing for divorce.

“Every night I prayed, hoping I’d wake up the next morning and find I’d simply had a bad dream and that my parents’ divorce wasn’t happening.

“My mother, in her work as a charge nurse, always had a key to the hospital drug cabinets. It didn’t take long for her to become addicted. Her pushing to divorce my dad, and the ugly mess that resulted, were the reasons I was hesitant to marry. I didn’t want to travel the path my parents had.

“But I also couldn’t ignore the message God had given me about Mike.”

Two weeks after he’d kissed her, Anne heard a persistent knock on her door. Mike was waiting on the other side. He’d come to apologize for kissing her. “Why have you been avoiding me?” he asked.

“As I told Mike about hearing God say he was the man I was to marry, this huge grin spread across his face. Everything changed when he said, “’Oh, I knew that.’”

From then on, Anne and Mike were joined at the hip. They made time to be together whenever they could.

In August 1986, Mike proposed.

“I said yes to his proposal, but I wouldn’t set a wedding date. Then, a little more than a year later, at Thanksgiving, I invited Mike, and several of my family members, to dinner. After dinner, Mike asked me out onto the balcony of my small apartment. The solemn expression on his face told me he had something on his mind. He deliberately reached for my hands, flashed the grin that made my heart skip a beat, looked deep into my eyes, and said, “’You’re marrying me now, or not at all.’"

“It had been so easy to think about getting married. That part was always easy. But the thought of actually being married—that was different. I couldn’t forget what had happened with my parents. I couldn’t forget what was written in Scripture: ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.’ (Mark 10: 7-9)

“I kept remembering those verses. I kept remembering my parents’ divorce. I kept hearing what God said that night when Mike kissed me. I knew my family was ready for dessert.

“And I knew if I didn’t agree to set a wedding date, I’d lose the man of my dreams.”

***
As I heard about her miscarriages, my heart hurt for Anne. I couldn’t imagine experiencing such pain. And I couldn’t help thinking how alone she must have felt. Anne requested the conversation Mike had initiated that May afternoon be used as the starting point for their story. I was happy to comply. But I wondered about all that had happened prior to that spring day.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version,

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