“Orderliness v Disorganization” – Preparing myself and my surroundings so I will achieve the greatest efficiency (I Corinthians 14:40)
If you’re not ATI, you may not understand the quotation before each article I plan to do. I’ll try to explain. Bill Gothard promotes an educational series in which he defines forty-nine “operational qualities” of character. These are the “character traits” you hear the Duggars go on about. Each week, as an ATIer, you are supposed to audit yourself against these character traits. “Are you orderly or disorganized?”, in concordance with biblical principle and scripture. For my “tale”, I plan to incorporate one of these principles into each part.
Attempting to write about my life is difficult. It took some weeks for me to organize my thoughts and prepare myself to write. To achieve the greatest efficiency, I decided to start from the beginning.
I’ve heard that my mom was stunnning. Raised with southern grace and charm by a debutante mother and large animal vet father, she had everything a young girl in the seventies needed to marry well and have a career. She wanted that career. She graduated from a private high school two years early because of her profound intelligence. My grandmother always reminded us that my mother had begun reading Thoureau at the age that most of us were thumbing through Little House on the Prairie. After high school, my mother attended university and finished her undergraduate program in three years – an unheard of thing in the seventies. She began teaching mathematics at a local junior high school, where she was beloved by her students.
With all of that going for her, you would never have guessed that she had deep insecurities. She did. She was terribly shy with men. As a result of her shyness, my mom rarely dated, though she was sought after by many men (if you believe my grandfather).
She met my father in a hospital. I’ve always wondered if such an auspicious beginning shouldn’t have given her pause. A female friend of my mother’s had gone into labor with her second child. My mom drove her to the hospital and stayed with her until her husband arrived. When the proud daddy-to-be arrived, my father was with him, having driven him to the hospital. As my mother and father waited with the proud papa in the waiting room, they became attracted to one another and ended up arranging to meet for lunch the next afternoon.
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