My Scandalous Mennonite Diary #28 (Finale)

-Mary

About two weeks after I spoke with Edwin, he came up to me in the store one day. He told me that he had decided to become a Christian.

It wasn’t just lip service either.

Edwin was a new man after that. You had never seen a more well-behaved boy.

I still remember the light sparkling in his eyes as he told me that.

It can be tempting to focus on all the difficult people and hard times…but there were good times and good people in that village as well.

Don’t get me wrong, we did have hard times.

Raising a young family isn’t always easy.

But marriage is so much easier when you work together with your partner. And, after that night at the supper table, Abe and I were able to work together like we never had before.

We truly did become one.

I still hated being a storekeeper’s wife…but I did it for his sake, and it was good. Eventually, Abe decided to give up the store and move to a dairy farm.

My life had gone full circle. I had returned to the farm life I had grown up in…and you know, the funny thing was, now I enjoyed it.

I suppose having a husband and a family around me who loved me made all the difference.

I can still remember my younger days, how I would sit in my bedroom crying, overcome with depression. I spent a lot of time wondering what I was going to do. Wondering who I could talk to about all my questions. At that time, I would have never thought that I’d ever have a family of my own.

It seemed impossible back then.

It seemed like God had turned his back on me.

Today…today…I’m just thankful for all the blessings that have filled my life.

***

-Abe

Eventually, we moved out of that store. Looking back on it now, I should have done that a lot sooner. That village was just a nest of the worst sort of traditions.

Once having my own store was all that I dreamed of…but to be honest, I enjoyed farm life a lot more.

It was quiet out there in the country and I liked that.

Well, most days it was quiet anyway. One day, one of my neighbors…a certain Ben Bueckert, decided to burn out his slough. It was a pretty windy day and soon the whole thing got out of control, so we went over to help put out the fire.

As it turned out, there were other sparks flying that day as well.

Ben met my daughter Betty as she served lunch to the firefighters.

He told me later that the first thing he had noticed about her was her smile.

The next thing I knew, they got married, and sometime after that, I was able to welcome my grandson Kelvin into the world.

It’s amazing how the cycle of love and life continues through the years….isn’t it?

I’m just so thankful that I found freedom.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some good things in our Mennonite culture.

Perogies in cream gravy is one of them.

It is good to remember our heritage and where we came from.

But the hard truth that I’ve come to realize is, not everything that went on in the good old days was good. Not everything that has been taught in the name of our founder, Menno Simons, has been right.

For a while, that truth was hard for me to accept.

Nowadays, when it comes to spiritual teachings, there isn’t room for anything else in my life than what the Bible teaches.

Man-made rules and traditions could have never brought me the life I’ve found.

I’ve been so blessed. I’d never want to return to the person that I was.

What else can I say? That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

***

Well, this brings the Mennonite Diary series to a conclusion.

All this was somewhat fictionalized but it was heavily influenced and inspired by the true story of my Grandmother and Grandfather.

If you would like to view a video of my Grandmother telling some of her story, there is a video of that below. (Scroll down.)

I do have a thought for a new series on Wednesdays. Want to see how/if that turns out? Tune in to this space next week on Wednesday!

Many thanks to Charissa Isaac for filming the video. You can check out Living Hope Media by clicking the link below.

http://www.livinghopemedia.org

All the entries in the Mennonite Diary series have also been compiled into eBook/Paperback form which now seems to be charting on Amazon. Click the link below if you wish to view that.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3RZ4HDR

Thank you all for your attention…and now, here is that video of my Grandmother that I mentioned.