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The Best Years of My Life - My Second Half
Joan Schultz
This year, 2011, I will turn 80 years old. As I reflect back to the year 1971 when I was 40, this is what I recall. My parents were and had been divorced for years, I had no brothers or sisters, no children, and had gotten a divorce.
A few months prior to 1971 my life had started to get back on a better path. I began searching for life's meaning. While growing up, the Methodist Church had certainly been a part of my life. Then there were years of hardly any spiritual guidance. In my search, I visited many prayer groups and churches. It was one of these search times that I first visited the Monday night healing service at Good Shepherd. It was the first time I had ever been in an Episcopal church.
During the summer of 1971, I had many vivid dreams instructing me to read certain Bible scriptures. I also met a few people (some known and some unknown to me) who gave me direction to read certain scripture verses that also gave me guidance through this difficult time in my life. In another dream I was instructed to give a specific amount of money ($103.26) to an ill friend --which I did. Amazingly, it was the exact amount of a bill for a nuclear test that my friend's insurance did not cover. [Most often I have discovered that God usually guides me in the quiet moments just after I awaken.] By the end of that summer, I
knew God was working in my life. Good things were happening, and the timing was amazing.
In September 1971 I returned to Lakemont Elementary as the art teacher. Many changes happened in the school system that year due to court mandated integration requirements for pupils and teachers. George Schultz and dozens of Webster Avenue Elementary pupils were transferred to my school. George was in the process of getting a divorce at this time. We started going together.
By January 1973, the time was right for us to marry. At the time we could not, as divorced people, be married in the Episcopal Church, so we had a civil service. By our 25th anniversary, however, that ruling had been dropped. Consequently George and I were married again in the chapel at Good Shepherd
with Father Bob Phillips and Father Jim Shortess officiating during a Saturday evening service.
As a result of our marriage, I gained four stepsons who were all teenagers - 13,15,17, and 19 years old. However, they did not live with us. In time, Mike, Marc, Matt and Jonathan got married which provided us with six grandchildren. Then grandchildren started getting married and have blessed us with four great-grandchildren.
How blessed I have been during my second 40 years! I now have a husband and many children to enrich my life!
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