Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child

I look back over my life and I see a lot of foolishness, but it was the foolishness of a child. The Lord said “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of correction will drive it far from him.” (Proverbs 22:15)

When I should have submitted to the Lord, I did not. I wanted to be married, to be someone’s wife, anyone’s wife to men who were already married. The lessons the Lord taught me were hard lessons to learn, the Potter was molding and shaping the clay, the vessel for His glory.

The flesh is a very powerful thing especially when one is young. I wanted to be married to a college professor. The stories I have mentioned were my more profound attachments, but I was drowning, and if anyone showed me the slightest attention, I gravitated towards it.

Before I began an affair with Valencia I was attending Fresno State. There was a professor named Dr. Jesus Luna, he was 40 years old, and he reminded me of daddy and of Valencia simultaneously, so strange the combination. Daddy hadn’t been in my life, Valencia didn’t notice me as a woman yet. I took Cultural Studies 114, which was really the History of Mexico. It was a night class, the night classes were much less stringent than the daytime classes. Some men have said that women are allowed to get away with more.

I remember I was taking an essay, and I felt as if didn’t have enough time, so I didn’t turn in my essay even though I had an hour and fifteen minutes, I was not happy with my answer, so I walked past Dr. Luna, he asked me where my test was, I responded, “I’m not turning it in.”

“Why not?” he answered quite annoyed.

“Because I don’t have enough time,” I said with a tinge of arrogance.

“I gave you 1 hour and 15 minutes.” This time he sounded annoyed.

“Well, I am not going to turn in work that I am not proud of.” And I proceeded to walk out the door. I was pretty sure that he would let me stay after class. I walked out the door knowing he would follow me.

Dr. Luna said, “I want you to finish the test.”

“Class is over.” I reminded him.

“Just sit down and finish it.” He almost ordered. It was the machismo attitude of daddy and Sgt. Ochoa combined. Even though I hated Sgt. Ochoa, it had given me great pleasure to annoy him. As I expected Dr. Luna gave me an additional 30 minutes. I did this to get his attention, as I liked him. He was obstinate he was nothing like Valencia, he was frank, harsh and to the point. He had given me only an 80 on a term paper I had worked weeks on. When I spoke to him in his office about it he told me it was “redundant.” There was the usual banter, the coquettish behavior. I reached out, I was drowning, the pathetic excuse of my heart. I later found out he was married with two boys.

When I took his class the following year, I went to his office to ask him something, he put his hand on my thigh, and asked me out.

“I date my students”, he proclaimed putting his hand on my thigh.

“Oh.” I was already interested in Brouwer. “But you’re married.” I reminded him.

“I still date.” He almost bragged. He began to notice that I had no more interest in him. He took his hand off of my thigh by that time.

“If you say anything, I will deny it” he said as if to threaten me.

“Who would I tell?” I assured him. He laughed.

But he was not done with me.

Once I didn’t show up to his class, he saw me on campus and followed me.

He stopped me, and took me aside, then screamed at me. “Why weren’t you in class today?”

It gave me some sort of sick pleasure to see that I had upset him.

“I don’t have to answer to you.” I shrugged his reaction aside.

“Don’t you ever miss class again”, His macho attitude, spoke loudly, he felt slighted that angered him.

This was the type of foolish behavior that the Lord had to correct. Why did I even engage him at all? But in my heart I meant to provoke him. I was already angry about the way Valencia had treated me, like a prostitute. It was as if I was getting back at Valencia by irritating Dr. Luna, who was not entirely innocent, but he wasn’t the one who had hurt me. I was bitter.

God was correcting this insolent girl of her self-destructive ways.

I didn’t love Dr. Luna but hurt flesh is desperate flesh.

I met Dr. Russell Mardon in 1990. He was the reason I was kicked out of momma’s apartment. But I pursued him. I used to see him riding a ten- speed bicycle on campus. I was still pretty shy, and I left him a note in the spoke of his bike. We met for coffee in the coffee shop, when he told me he was married with two children. Naturally I was disappointed.

“Then why did you meet me for coffee?”

“It was a nice invitation, I was curious to see who wanted to meet me.”

I stayed a bit entangled with him, trying desperately to extricate myself from Brouwer.

One evening I found myself without a ride home. It was evening when I asked him to take me home and he obliged. I flirted with him on the drive home, and then we sat in his car for a little while. I was up to mischief at this time Brouwer had blown a deep hole into my heart he was in Europe. My dying and injured heart didn’t excuse what I did next I kissed Mardon, even though I knew he had a wife and two toddlers. Once you cross the boundary, nothing seems to be inappropriate anymore. He should have been angry with me, but he wasn’t.

Enduring the summer with nails inside my heart made me want to contact Mardon again. Once sin has its hooks, it is easy for the devil to convince you to continue to sin. I seriously contemplated beginning something with Mardon that summer. Only God and my sister Moe knew.

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The unhealthy relationships I was in, impressed upon me the need to find comfort in other professors.

I took Dr. Ephraim Smith’s class in American History, History 163 in the Spring of 1998. He was Brouwer’s office mate, so he had seen me before I took his class. In 1990 and 1991 he saw me often in Brouwer’s office. Once when Brouwer wasn’t there, Dr. Smith offered to give me Brouwer’s home phone number, I declined. Brouwer hadn’t given me his phone number for obvious reasons. I always suspected that Dr. Smith knew I was involved with Brouwer.

By the time I had taken Dr. Smith’s class I was no longer involved with Brouwer. Dr. Smith loved American history. He was very passionate in his re-telling of it, and I found this extremely attractive. I was not involved with anyone and I began to make it my mission to get him to notice me.

Dr. Smith could be humorous, but he was serious in his details when he lectured. I took so many notes in his class it became my favorite class. I never missed a class. I began to find myself deeply attracted to him. I was like a broken doll, expecting a man to fix me, to rescue me, the way women were rescued in movies.

He was younger than Brouwer. He wore spectacles his graying hair was a bit messy, unlike the other professors it seemed he didn’t bother with his hair. He always wore white buttoned short sleeved shirts and black slacks. He had pens in his shirt pocket like a nerd, I found it very endearing. I should have kept my feelings to myself. But I would write him responses to his lectures. Whatever he lectured about, I would put responses in an envelope in his box. Expecting some sort of reaction. But whenever I would visit him in his office, he seemed off set by my visits. In other words I annoyed him. He wasn’t interested in me. One day he asked me what I really wanted.

“What do you mean?” I was embarrassed. But I am certain he knew that I had a crush on him.

This was foolishness. Inappropriate foolishness, I could write that it was because of the borderline personality disorder that I behaved this way. But I feel that I knew better than to behave this way.

To a certain extent, we have to want to correct our behavior in God’s strength, we have to ask for His strength, and fix our soul on Jesus. The flesh is indeed very strong, we still live inside our bodies, and the devil’s voice like a radio wave, continues to broadcast the way of the flesh.

“In which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.”

(Ephesians 2:2)

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When I was taking Reformation history I was also taking Soviet History, History 143 with Dr. David Jones. He reminded me of a puppet for some reason, he had an adorable cherubic face, brown hair and blue eyes. Klassen was ignoring me and didn’t feel about me the way I felt about him.

But I noticed Dr. Jones’ friendly behavior. He would tease me in class, whenever I would show up. He teased me about a book I had read about Rudolf Hess’ double that had flown to Scotland. There was continuous banter between us. I perceived it as flirting, possibly, at the time I needed it to be.

Whenever I did show up he had something to say to me. I had the habit of missing his class because of Klassen. My heart was tied up with him, but I knew the string was strangling me, I was being asphyxiated and I didn’t even realize it. Dr. Jones was a pleasure, but he was married. I didn’t think I would have sex with him, of course, but it was inappropriate for me to flirt with him and to write notes to him. He was polite to me, when I would see him in his office, he smiled at me a lot, but I knew he was not interested in me in that way. He seemed to find me attractive that was the real reason for his friendly behavior towards me in class.

Unlike Luna, Dr. Jones never asked me out. I would have gone out with him had he asked me, despite the fact that I knew he was married. Seeing Klassen was devastating me, I should have turned to my Lord that is what the Holy Spirit wanted.

I gave Dr. Jones the book “Tortured for Christ” by Richard Wurmbrand, the Romanian minister. Dr. Jones did talk about God in class, as if he was searching, perhaps he was already saved, but I felt compelled to give him that book. He passed away the following year in early 2000 at the age of 58.

“For what I am doing I do not understand, for what I will to do that I do not practice, but what I hate is what I do.”

(Romans 7:15)

God asks us “Flee youthful lusts, but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart,”

(2 Timothy 2:22)

God had to drive this rebellious heart to the edges, until I truly repented from this type of behavior. When a heart is hurt it is vulnerable to all kinds of evil. The devil speaks to a hurting heart, he justifies sinful behavior in fact he demands it.

This is why our hearts need to abide with Jesus. When a heart has been crushed by love, it needs to be healed.