A Heritage of Faith

A Heritage of Faith is the story of both my husband's family and my mine. I grew up in Dallas, Texas, while he grew up in Fort Worth. He was older than I, in fact, he is only ten years younger than my mother! She got an early start and had me when she was only 16 years old. So my parents thought he was much too old and "experienced" for me. When we married after knowing each other only six months, my parents thought the marriage would surely not last.
She would tell people, "I never dreamed when I was ten years old, a baby boy was being born that would grow up to marry my daughter!"

But in my book I tell about God's providence in bringing us together. Only God could have done it. We celebrated 59 years of marriage in November, 2013, so I guess it's going to last. The majority of my book is about our family, and how we served churches and raised our children.

I tell about God's direction in calling him to be a preacher and me to be a preacher's wife. I describe the churches we served and many of the people we met through the years. I tell about the ups and downs, the happy times and the sad.

I experienced a deep depression when I was a young mother, and God led me out of it in a miraculous way.

One of our children is gay. In chapter 16, I tell about how we dealt with the news of learning our oldest son was gay, and how our family adjusted and continued to love him.

Our youngest daughter experienced infertility for many years, and God allowed her and her husband to adopt a baby after almost fifteen years of marriage. Then she had a child by natural means at the age of forty. Chapter 19 tells about this time in our lives.

God taught us many lessons, and gave us many blessings, which are detailed in my book.

When my husband and I retired, we took off in our camper during January, February, and March each year, to build churches in warm climates while the snow flew in Missouri. I had an ancient laptop computer that I had bought from my sister, and as I sat in my camper one day I began to think of all the stories my husband had told from the pulpit about his growing up days. I remembered many stories from my childhood, as well. I decided that those stories should not be lost from our grandchildren, so I began to write them down.

Every day when my husband would come home, I would show him what I had written. He would read the story and say, "Well, it didn't happen like that....." and he would proceed to tell me how it really happened. But one day, I decided, "That's the way I remember it, and I'm the writer, so that's the way I'm going to write it." Sometimes I took his advice, and sometimes my own ideas won out.

Here is a story from A Heritage of Faith that took place shortly after our marriage, while we lived in Decatur, Texas, and attended college. I must explain that my husband's name is Marvin Nobles, but when I met him, he was introduced with his nickname, Charlie, and that is who he has been to be all these years. So when I talk about "Charlie", it is the man I married.

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I must admit, when I got married, I had a lot of growing up to do. I had my dreams about what marriage was, and they were not reality. I think I must have thought marriage was like the old nursery ryme about the girl whose husband sat her on a cushion and gave her strawberries and cream to eat, and made her the center of the universe. I was to learn that all my dreams were pretty childish, and that life was not like that.

Once while we were in Decatur, Charlie did something that made me mad, and I said, "I'll just go home to my mother."

To my great surprise, he went to the bus station, bought me a ticket, and put me on the bus! What a revolting development that was! I thought he would apologize and beg me to stay, but no, he sent me back home!

When I got to Dallas, I called mother to pick me up at the bus station. When she got there, she asked me what happened. I told her about Charlie making me so mad that I had just come home. Lo and behold, she bought a ticket and sent me back! She said, "You're married now and you will have to learn to live with your husband. That's where you belong." She did let me stay one night, but I was on the bus the next morning, going back to Decatur. So reality began to dawn. I was going to have to grow up.

When I got back to Decatur, Charlie picked me up at the bus station. I never threatened to leave again. I learned my lesson. A preacher needed a wife who would stand by him, not run off at the least inclination!

         For this cause a man will leave his father and mother and he
         shall be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
                                           --Genesis 2:24 NAS