by helmut
“I love Betty very much and she knows it. But why is she so rebellious?” Mrs. Grant asked me.
This mother was a sincere Christian, and her teenage daughter had been a continual object of her prayers. She could not get Betty to study, do a chore right, get along with her brother, or even eat properly. It was a mother-daughter battle, and it terribly distressed Mrs. Grant. (Read More)
by helmut
Isabel Carr complained that her problems began the day she decided to become an obedient wife. “I figured that a Christian woman ought to be subject to her husband,” she said.
And what had ten years of obedience produced? Her husband, Glenn, bowled four nights every week. He paid little attention to the children, even missing their son Dan’s high school graduation because Glenn stayed too long on the golf course. Three months ago, admitting he was growing fond of his secretary, Glenn moved out. He had not contributed a dime to the family since. (Read More)
by helmut
“How do they expect me to manage this store right when I have such poor help?” Gil Black muttered, as he checked the canned corn and found every price mark only an ink smudge. He ought to tell that stock boy a thing or two! But he wouldn’t chew him out. Gil Black never brought anyone up short. (Read More)
by helmut
Eric Green lay in a pool of his own blood on the bathroom floor. He watched the red stream spurt from his slashed wrists and trickle along the masonry grooves that separated the little squares of tile. Powerless to stop it, he saw the blood crawl steadily onward and spill into more grooves.
He had started this flow. It was something he had wanted to do—to end his life. But now the horror of his choice overwhelmed him. What a mistake he had made! (Read More)
by helmut
The new high-school music teacher, fresh from college, was fair game for the harassment of his students. Fred Baker, 22, thought things would improve when he took over the music at church and assisted with the young people’s work. But he was wrong.
Embarrassing practical jokes, jibes at his youthfulness, and little grins that came to faces because he was the school’s first male music teacher—all this teasing kept up. Word got back to him some of the students and parents were saying he wouldn’t dare subject his piano-playing hands to a real man’s work. (Read More)
by helmut
Ken, at 40, was a happy man. He had worked hard all his life. His dad had never been able to hold a job, and so Ken delivered papers as a boy to help his mother.
Ken quit school in the tenth grade to work as a messenger boy in the office of a big factory. He was determined to do better than his dad and to provide properly for his family. (Read More)