Ecc Studies 14 and 15

Study Number Fourteen

Reread Ecclesiastes 8.

“then I saw all that God has done”

Later, as she drove to the school to pick up some papers she’d left in her classroom, Annie reviewed the evening in her mind, with a smile on her own face and then let her thoughts dwell on her friends Rod and Carol and their girls. She saw Rod’s tan, very young-looking face, the dark curls on his forehead, his wide, puzzled blue eyes and wry smile. Rod and Carol really were young to have teenagers, even young teenagers like theirs. They’d gotten married at twenty and had the girls just a little over a year later. It amazed Annie to think that she too could have a child Allison’s age, a similar part-child, part-adult, dealing with a newly developing body. The thought was only bitter, not sweet at all. A fresh-faced toddler with warm, sticky fists, a lanky grade-schooler, all nonexistent, all eaten up by pain, by injustice, by wrong, by sin. Annie didn’t blame him so much after some time had passed since she’d dealt with her problem in the way she had. Then she didn’t blame him at all. She had been chiefly at fault for her actions—more accurately, completely at fault for them.
Rod and Carol’s life seemed so nice in comparison to Annie’s, so idyllic. They must have done everything right while Annie did everything wrong. And yet, Annie knew that Rod had had an affair two years ago, and it had almost ruined his marriage. Carol had told him to move out and the girls didn’t see him for several months because she didn’t want him to and because he couldn’t face them.
Ironically, Rod had been at the top of his career during that time period, making a tremendous amount of money in sales. After his marriage almost disintegrated, he quit his job and did all he could to reconcile with his wife and daughters. It had been a slow and difficult process, on all their parts, but it certainly had been worth it. Now he was teaching and coaching at the school the girls went to, the school where Annie taught art. His salary was significantly less than what it had been, and he’d been recently diagnosed with a failure of a kidney, not life-threatening, but not pleasant, and his medical care was very expensive for the family—they’d taken out a second mortgage and borrowed from the girls’ college money though they only had a few years of high school left--with their limited insurance coverage. Yet, the family seemed so happy in their life together now, the past forgotten, the future bright, despite his health concerns. They didn’t seem to be still dwelling on the past at all, while Annie didn’t go a day without thinking about the two events in her past that had so affected her then and continued to affect her. Rod and Carol’s girls were sweethearts, smart, fun, and filled with promise. They’d had a little harder time forgiving their dad than even Carol had had. It certainly hadn’t been easy for any of them. But when they’d gotten to that point—it had been wholehearted. Carol had blamed herself—a little bit. But when Rod returned to her, he wouldn’t let her blame herself at all. He fully accepted responsibility for his actions. And he seemed to have been able to accept his family’s forgiveness too. He’d not expressed—to Annie’s knowledge—any feelings that his kidney failure was some sort of punishment for what he had done, though Annie had often wondered if it might be. No, Rod and Carol and their girls seemed to have fully put the past behind them and apparently were truly trusting God for the future, in as much as their humanness did still cause them to stumble now and then. Yet Annie couldn’t seem to stop worrying about Allison’s boyfriend Greg, more even than about Rod’s situation. Annie so wanted Allison to have far more joy in her life than Annie felt she’d had in hers. Surely the girl would make better choices than Annie had.
Carol said Rod had only come to know the Lord after the affair. She said that it was the affair and its aftermath that had helped him realize he really wasn’t a Christian, trusting in Christ for salvation, but merely a churchgoer without a personal relationship with Christ. But Annie knew it was also possible for someone who knew the Lord to do terrible things. She knew from personal experience.

Annie unlocked the double doors with her key and walked down the long hallway to her classroom at the end of it. Her footsteps echoed in the empty building. In her classroom, she hesitated at the bulletin board beside her desk. It was covered with kids’ art work, pages and pages of paintings and drawings arranged in the shapes of arrows pointing in all directions. Annie adjusted a pen and ink drawing of a sunflower. She was rather persnickety about everything lining up just so, almost as bad as one of her high school English teachers had been about margins and spacing. She thought of Clare and smiled to herself.
“Ah, the little teacher hard at work,” a low voice said.
At the unexpected sound, Annie froze for a moment, and then turned around slowly.
He was tall, dark-haired and dark-eyed, though at the moment he wore sunglasses, which hid his eyes from view.
“Drew,” Annie said. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I had to grab some papers, some mail I wanted to go through this weekend. Thought I’d just take it home and do it there. You? Surely you’re not just here to straighten that picture.”
“No, no,” Annie said. She forced a laugh. “No, I’m just doing the same as you. I mean, I’m here for papers, too, not mail, though—some tests I thought I’d take home to grade.”
“Ah.” He regarded her silently for a few moments and then took off his sunglasses and allowed his gaze to penetrate hers. His eyes were so dark. She looked away. He took a deep breath and spoke. “You’re not really interested in a relationship with me, are you?” he said softly.
“Not really,” Annie said quietly, after a moment. She’d been taken aback by his abruptness. They’d had a few dates and they chatted with each other frequently. There was a certain undercurrent in their conversations, in their just being in close proximity with each other, and there were some rumors about them. But neither of them had ever verbalized interest in the other beyond friendship. His dismissive question certainly seemed to her to be as unexpected as his ignoring her completely would have been. Maybe more so. And she felt such an unexpected sense of loss as well, after she’d agreed that there was no point in his pursuing her. As though something she’d hardly even dreamed about having was no longer something she could even dream about. She stared at the floor, the sloping gray concrete. She almost corrected herself, to say she was interested, but she saw that scenario heading down a road she’d gone before and dreaded the similar steep drop off at the end of it.
“Well, thank you for your honesty,” he said. “I won’t continue to trouble you.”
He left Annie staring at the drawing of the sunflower, wondering why the dark center of the flower wasn’t larger and hadn’t been filled in more thoroughly. There was far too much white showing through. Maybe it wasn’t really right to call it a sunflower after all, though that was what the student had labeled it.

Questions to Answer

1. Why do you think God apparently does not always clearly punish wickedness and reward righteousness on this earth?

2. How is Annie’s response to Drew influenced by her past experiences?

3. Do you struggle with lack of repentance, bitterness, guilt? Do you find it difficult to believe God has forgiven you even though you’ve confessed the sin to Him? Are you afraid you’ll still continue in it? Do you find it difficult to “forgive” God for something He’s done that you perceive as unfair?


Study Number Fifteen

Read Ecclesiastes 9.

“wisdom is better than strength”

Clare watched Aaron and Andrew race toward the playground. Keegan came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t you wish you were them?” said Clare, turning toward him. “Everything’s an adventure.” He released her and fell into a companionable stride beside her. She reached for his hand.
“Everything’s an adventure for me too,” said Keegan. “My beautiful wife. My nine-to-five job. Our minivan. Our split-level.”
Clare laughed. It couldn’t possibly sound more mundane. But though they did drive a minivan and live in a split-level, Keegan definitely did not have a nine- to- five job. Never had. He went to as many of the young people’s school activities as he could and often got calls from them about a problem or an invitation to a birthday party at some point during the week. Clare wondered if he was starting to resent the time beyond his hours at church it took to minister to his teens. Helping Clare in dealing with their two toddlers on his off hours was exhausting enough.
She didn’t really miss teaching, though she still thought she might go back to it at some point. She was enjoying having the extra time to write, mostly during the afternoons while the boys napped and at night before they went to bed. The second two books in her series were not as popular as the first had been, but they did provide an extra source of income and she continued to find herself tempted to use the money in a fruitless quest for happiness. She’d go on occasional buying sprees only to feel remorseful and certainly no more fulfilled. Finally, she put the money into investments and worthwhile contributions. She didn’t find it as difficult to live frugally on the salary Keegan made. All her growing up years, she’d had her mother’s example of thriftily taking care of a family. She and Keegan also planned to help support Lauren and her husband, along with other missionaries they were already supporting. Keegan was always careful to make sure that those they gave to were really using money properly. His folks had been discouraged because of a missionary couple their flock had supported who’d they’d discovered to have been living at a level quite a bit higher than those of their congregation.
Keegan and Clare sat down on a bench near the edge of the playground and watched the boys climb up the steps to the top of the slide, slide down, and then climb up again.
“I love you, Keegan,” Clare said suddenly, “and I love our boys. I think I’ve grown up a lot since I’ve become a mom. I’m not so critical, I hope.”
She glanced at her husband. He smiled slightly but didn’t say anything. “It would be fine with me if you wanted a change of careers,” she said. “You work too hard, I think.”
“I think the same about you,” Keegan said. He shrugged. “I don’t think I want to quit, yet, though it might be smart to step back a little more. Not feel like I have to be quite so available to the teens all the time. You and the boys come first.” But Clare already knew he felt that way. He usually took them all with him to as many activities as he could, though the kids weren’t always particularly well-behaved. She and Keegan took turns coaching, refereeing them. And Keegan never neglected his end of the deal. He often spent more time keeping them in line than she did and he seemed to truly enjoy being with his boys.
Keegan stood up and walked to the slide. “Hey guys, let’s try out the merry-go-round,” he said.
Clare closed her eyes. She was so thankful for him. He did seem tired though. She was tired too. Maybe they both were just doing too much.


Kate had known this day would come, had even known that it might be coming soon, but it still took her by surprise the Sunday morning when Lauren called. It was unusual for her to call on a Sunday morning, when Nick wasn’t there and Kate really didn’t have time to talk because she was getting ready for the service herself, practicing music, and starting meal preparations which often involved putting something in the crock pot to be ready when she got home, most likely with some of their church family or visitors in tow. Sometimes she called to remind the day’s nursery workers of their responsibility or hunt down a substitute for someone or quickly reviewed her Sunday school lesson. The teaching position hadn’t worked out after all, and Nick had ended up staying at the church. Jack had gone ahead and gone to the Bible college, only a state away from his parents. But Lauren had ended up on the west coast—far from home, like Annie, actually very close in proximity to Annie. Kate had really been opposed to the idea when Lauren first suggested it. She kept thinking about Annie and worrying that Lauren might turn out like her. Or might never live close to her just as Annie had stayed in California, so far from her family. But of course it was illogical to think that going to the same part of the country as her sister would make her daughter behave like her sister. Still, it was Nick who told Lauren she could attend the school in California, when she finally told her parents she’d been accepted at a college in the state, near Annie’s school, though not at all affiliated with it, Annie’s being elementary and secondary. Both were Christian schools though. Kate reluctantly gave her husband her support. She’d been supporting him for almost twenty years now, after all.
More surprising than when Lauren called was what she had to say--it was that that Kate had known was coming but still wasn’t ready to hear. After apologizing for calling on a Sunday morning, Lauren told her mother that Ben, her boyfriend, wanted to come home with her at Christmas time, just a few months away, to ask her father for his blessing on their marriage. “I wanted to tell you right away. I almost called last night, right after we got back from our date, but it was so late. Oh, Mom, I’m so excited. I’m getting married. Can you believe it?”
“When you finish your four-year degree?” Kate said quickly, only partially as a question. She emphasized four-year.
“No, right away, Mom, this summer, if you and Dad are okay with it, of course, but surely you will be,” Lauren said just as quickly and even more definitely. “Two years of college are enough for me.”
“But sweetheart, I thought you really wanted to finish your program and get your degree. Won’t you need it to go to mission field?” Kate moved to the kitchen table where she was folding bulletins for the morning service. As it turned out, her daughter had told them last summer that she wanted to go to the mission field. She wouldn’t be staying in California, but she wouldn’t be living close to her parents either.
“No, Ben and I have already been accepted by a board. A two-year Bible degree is enough.” They’d almost finished a two-year program, but it was one that segued into a four-year program and Kate had thought, even expected, that they’d transfer into it. “Then we’ll study some at the missions’ institute and learn the language before we go to the field—somewhere with unreached people groups. Ben and I both feel strongly about that,” Lauren said.
How could Kate say anything negative when it seemed obvious that her daughter’s goals were good ones? And Kate herself had been young when she married. She’d never finished her college degree either, though she had taken some more classes after she and Nick were married, before the twins were born. Kate had wished she’d finished, and maybe even gotten further education yet, like Clare, but if she’d had to trade Nick and the kids for school, she definitely wouldn’t have done it. Now Kate was suspicious that Clare rather wished she’d married a little earlier and been able to have more children than just their two. After Andrew, she just hadn’t been able to have another. But there was still time. Andrew was just a little over five years old. Kate knew siblings with wider age gaps—why the twins and Jason were almost six years apart—and Clare wasn’t that old yet either. And anyway who was to say for sure that her age was responsible for her not being able to get pregnant again—many younger woman struggled with infertility.
Kate mechanically finished folding the bulletins and emptied the dishwasher, put a roast in the oven and handed Jason her Bible and lesson book to take to the car while Lauren talked about Ben. Most of what Lauren told her she already knew. The two had been dating for almost a year now, after all. Sometimes it seemed to Kate that Ben was all Lauren talked about. He did seem like an exemplary young man, from a good family, a missionary family actually, working in a small church not unlike the one Lauren had grown up in, with her father as the pastor. Of course, Ben’s parents had had language and cultural differences to deal with, as missionaries in France. Although Ben had enjoyed growing up and ministering in France, he was burdened for the 10/40 window, wanting to share the gospel with those who’d had no exposure to Christianity whatsoever. He was willing to learn a new language, along with Lauren, who spoke only English and would have to learn the language of almost any place overseas where they chose to go. Ben was a good student and Lauren was also a fairly quick study. Kate felt sure they’d do fine. But she hated the thought of their being so far away. She’d hardly ever see her grandchildren. And my mother didn’t get to see hers that often either, Kate thought, with our living in the Wisconsin and she and Dad in Kansas. Clare is closer to her, but still almost half a day’s drive and Annie’s on the West Coast. Still, they’d kept up contact through phone calls and letters and visits. They’d drifted apart sometimes and were closer at others, but hadn’t that been true even when they all lived in the same house? There had been a time when they rubbed shoulders daily and were miles apart. They were linked though, irrevocably so, so much so that sometimes Kate found it difficult to know where one stopped and another began.
“We’re going to have the wedding on the beach. It will be beautiful,” Lauren said. “We’ll use driftwood as a backdrop for the wedding party, and of course the ocean, though I haven’t decided if the water should be behind us or to the side of us. Aunt Annie says it doesn’t matter—either way can be equally nice. She’s going to help us with anything we want her to. She offered, and I sure plan to take her up on it. And of course we want your help, if you can, and Ben’s family’s too, though you’re all farther away. I hope you can come for several weeks before the wedding. Do you think you’ll be able to?”
“I’ll try,” Kate said, still trying to take it all in.
In spite of Kate’s initial concerns that Lauren would turn out like Annie, Kate had been thankful that Lauren chose to go to a school near her aunt. While Kate would have preferred to have Lauren near her, or maybe even near Clare, she thought it better for Lauren to be within close proximity of some family than completely on her own. Though there was still a dark shadow over her, Annie had matured a great deal the past few years. She’d repeatedly won teacher of the year awards and was obviously a favorite at the high school where she taught art. She’d also sold some of her work. She was still resolutely single. Kate wasn’t sure she’d ever marry, but she kept holding out hope for her. Thirty-four was by no means beyond marriageable age, if there even was such a thing.
Annie had been an encouragement to Lauren, had actually started taking her to her church and Ben attended the church as well. So, to some extent, Annie was responsible for their getting together, and with her artistic abilities, she’d be a tremendous asset in planning a wedding, especially as Lauren’s taste also tended toward the artsy and her beach theme involved incorporating wedding decorations into the beauty of the outdoors so that the two complemented one another. Annie would be able to pull things together wonderfully.
Kate sighed. If only it weren’t so far away. If only all of Lauren’s plans weren’t pulling her farther and farther away from her family. Kate had often thought sheer hard work and will power would eventually win out, and many times they did, but there were times there was nothing she could do to turn things her way. There were times she simply had to accept that God’s ways weren’t her ways. And this was one of those times.
“I’ve got to go,” Lauren said, “I’m not even dressed yet. Ben’s sister is visiting him and we’re going to hang out at Annie’s house this afternoon. She’s staying there. I offered to let her stay with me, but who wants to sleep in a dorm room if you have any other option? Well, I’ll talk to you later, Mom.”
“Yes,” Kate said a little absently. “I need to get going too.”
“Break it to Dad for me, will you?” Lauren said. “You’ll know just what to say.”
“I think you really should talk to him yourself,” Kate said. Of course Nick would agree. He’d probably be excited. He liked Ben. But he might think Lauren should finish school first. That was probably why Lauren wanted Kate to talk to him first. Kate should be flattered, she supposed, that her daughter found her more sympathetic than her father—this time.
“Oh, I will,” Lauren said quickly. “After you do, please, Mom. Tell him I called but he wasn’t there.”
Kate started to say Of course he’s not here; it’s Sunday morning, but Lauren said goodbye, and I love you, and Kate said the same.
Jason walked in then and looked at her quizzically, mouthing, Who is it?
Kate mouthed back, Lauren, and his eyes got big.
“She and Ben--?” Jason said out loud.
Kate nodded.
“And she wants you to tell Dad?” Jason said.
Kate nodded again and hung up the phone.
“Does she want to get married here?” Jason said.
“No, there, on the beach,” Kate said. She’s already got it all planned, Kate thought. She picked up the bulletins and shoved them into her tote bag, then handed it to Jason while she pulled on a jacket. “Annie’s going to help them,” she said as she and Jason walked out the door and headed to the car.

Questions to Answer

1. Because many times in life it seems that there is no advantage to doing right--after all both the righteous and the wicked face difficulties and eventually die--we might be tempted to stop trying. What should we do according to Ecclesiastes 9?

2. Why is wisdom better than strength, although people don’t always acknowledge this truth?


3. Is Clare learning to value what God has given her?


4. Why is Kate unhappy and how does she handle her feelings?

5. Are you thankful for the gifts God has given you? When you struggle with some sort of unhappiness in life—and you do struggle with unhappiness, even as a Christian, do you try to“fix” your problem with physical effort?