The Jack Miller Archive

It was June, 1960, and six weeks before I had delivered a beautiful baby girl, Keren, our fifth child. By now the summer heat had turned our town into a bake oven. The humidity was very low, but the temperature sometimes would go up to 107 degrees or higher. I was lying on the hardwood floor of our bedroom near the screen door hoping to catch any breeze that might come around the corner of our wide porch. To lie here was cooler than lying on the hot bed. I tried to cope with the heat by keeping the house open at night, and in the morning pulling all the shades, trying to keep inside coolness the night brought. It usually worked until about 11:30 in the morning on hot days. We had no fans or air conditioning.

"Dana (not her real name), a good friend of mine from Los Angeles, had been staying with us for a few days. She had come to attend the funeral of another dear friend who had died the previous week. Dana had said to me, 'You shouldn't have to live this way. You need a bigger refrigerator and air conditioning.'

"As I lay on the floor I thought about her comment and said to myself, 'Yes, you deserve better, and if Jack had not gone into the ministry and become a college professor like I had planned I wouldn't have to put up with these conditions.'

"When we were married ten years before I was sure of God's plan for our lives. Now in 1960 I actually didn't like God's plan. I felt God was for me as long as I did my part, but I seemed to lose him when I didn't understand my part or want to accept his plan. I also believed my part to live within the income God had given us. That was part of family order. But buying a house with my father's financial help didn't keep us within our budget. At that time there was never enough money to balance our budget — much less buy air conditioning for our home.

"Too, when Jack was ordained as a pastor in 1959 I suddenly found myself with a role — pastor's wife I did not want in my heart of hearts. Then when I gave birth to Keren I was also very weak physically and it was a difficult time. I accepted an interpretation of my life and Jack's that came from below. I hardly knew I had done this because I had all these negative thoughts and feelings beneath the surface of my life. But a body weakened by surgery just as I was entering my menopause was forcing this emotional turmoil to the surface. Too, except for Keren our children were all moving out of home into marriage or college. During this time of rapid life changes the poison root grew, and now I felt its controlling power."

Rose Marie's Story: *Surprised by Grace*, p. 13