Wonderment | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Wonderment | Previous Challenge Entry
By Barbara Mahler
06/08/14
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Although many years have gone by – albeit a few decades, I still recall the childhood game I played with classmates in the school yard – the Wonder Ball. While tossing a ball to each other, we sang: the wonder ball goes round and round, to catch it quickly you are bound. If you’re the one to hold it last the game is over and you are out!

Musing ever so briefly on where life has taken me I can’t help but think that perhaps life is like the Wonder Ball game.

I loved my elementary school years and was always a good student. School was a pleasant respite from the alcoholic environment in which I lived. I wasn’t allowed to have friends over like my classmates did, and my parents never provided an explanation – it just wasn’t allowed.

The wonder ball goes round and round…

Although I got a GED, my high school years were cut short by an out-of-wedlock pregnancy – having to give up my son for adoption and go to work. At sixteen, I had to leave my parents’ house because of my father’s drunken abusiveness.

The wonder ball goes round and round…

At eighteen, my child’s father and I married – quite confident that because we weren’t alcoholics we would live happily ever after. Our daughter and another son were born within two years. We had moved away from the small town in which we grew up, but decided to return so that my husband could pursue his dream of becoming a police officer.

The wonder ball goes round and round…

Four years later another son was born. We managed to put a down payment on a house and my husband got the appointment to the local police force. He worked a part time job on his days off, and I helped out with part time work while he babysat in the evenings. When we compared ourselves to our neighbors – most of whom were older than us, it seemed that they had nicer looking houses, newer cars, better furniture, etc., but we loved each other and our children, and reassured each other that someday we would have all the things that we wanted.

The wonder ball goes round and round…

Shortly after our fourth child – a second daughter, was born my husband got a new job with a county law enforcement agency. I was much relieved thinking that it would significantly improve our household finances. However, even though I was the household bookkeeper my husband did not allow me to see his paycheck. His excuses varied each pay day as to why he was depositing less and less money into our joint checking account. I began getting phone calls that the mortgage was in serious arrears, and ultimately a notice that we were without car insurance. When he continually refused to answer my questions, I consulted a lawyer.

The wonder ball goes round and round…

It took more than two years in the legal system for me to learn that our financial situation was caused by my husband’s involvement with another woman. The home that we jointly owned had to be sold to pay his debts. The life that I thought we were building was in ruins – in fact, it didn’t exist.

The wonder ball goes round and round…

The ensuing years have been extremely difficult. I’ve often felt that I’m “out.” But I continue to trust in the goodness of the Lord.

And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Mt 28:20 NABRE

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