Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: GENTLE (10/21/21)
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TITLE: Little Margie | Previous Challenge Entry
By Mariane Holbrook
10/27/21 -
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Growing up in an evangelical church in upstate New York, Margie attended every service: Sunday School at 10; Morning Worship at 11; Youth Meeting at 6:30; and Evening Service at 7:30. Her social life centered around church activities with the usual restrictions of that era: no movies, dancing, smoking, drinking, gambling, or playing cards.
As a teenager, Margie accepted these restraints without question and helped organize roller-skating parties, hayrides, parties, taffy-pulls and picnics for her friends at church. She taught younger children at Sunday School and developed a rapport with them that proved of value to her later in life.
Margie was a pretty young woman but dressed conservatively. Feeling that God wanted His children to "dress modestly, with decency and propriety", (I Timothy 2:9), she believed that, "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight." (1 Peter 3:2-5)
After high school, Margie worked for a year as a medical transcriptionist at the local hospital. One Sunday at church, through a series of God-ordained circumstances, she met the man God had chosen as her life partner.
Bob was a World War 2 veteran from Pennsylvania. His father, a new member of the church Margie attended, had recently moved to Margie's hometown to work as a florist. At first sight, Bob was stricken with Margie. She looked like the picture of the girl that came with his new wallet when he first purchased it.
He pursued her vigorously until she accepted his proposal of marriage. She was exactly the girl he had wanted for a wife: Godly, quiet, gentle, and giving.
After the wedding, they sought work that would prepare them for later missionary service in the Philippines. Bob had been stationed in the Philippines during the war and longed to return to spread the gospel. They found work in an orphanage located in an impoverished Kentucky Mountain village where food was so scarce that meat was served only once a week. But they prevailed until their assignment was over, hopeful that they had made a difference in the orphans' lives.
Accepted by a missions board, they flew to the Philippines where the first of their four children was soon born. Besides teaching in a seminary there, Bob helped with the curriculum and pastored a church. Margie bonded well with the Filipino women and soon was conducting Bible classes for them. Her gentle nature endeared her to the women and the other missionaries stationed there.
After their third child was worn, a massive mud slide crashed down the mountain, damaging their house beyond repair. One of their daughters was removed from her high chair in the kitchen only minutes before the mudslide broke into the kitchen where their daughter had been. Margie braved the event with her usual quiet demeanor. She didn't want the children to know how close they all came to losing their lives.
A second major catastrophe hit the family when Margie was pregnant with their fourth child. In 1955, only months before the Salk vaccine was made available in the Philippines, Bob and their second daughter, (four-year-old Debbie), were stricken with Polio. Marge, true to her nature, did not succumb to fear or self-pity. Indeed, she, her oldest daughter and their toddler son waved goodbye to Bob and Debbie who were being sent home for better treatment at a New York City rehabilitation hospital. Margie was unable to travel with them because of her advanced pregnancy.
Bob and Debbie were finally released but were left with some permanent paralysis in their legs. Margie's baby was delivered and soon she and her children left for New York.
Later, Bob began work for the missionary organization that had assigned them to the Philippines. Margie finished earning her college degree, then worked in the administrative offices of a local Christian college, helping to prepare students for overseas missionary service. She was voted state director of the large women's missionary group to which she belonged.
When Margie died in 1911, tributes about her began arriving from many countries. Some remarked that an appropriate epitaph would be, "Thy gentleness hath made (her) great." (Psalm 18:35 KJV)
Margie was my sister.
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Non-fiction
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance…" (Galatians 5:22,23) KJV
All Scripture is taken from the King James Version.
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