Despite knowing these things, I didn't anticipate the initial isolation that would be my forced lot in Billings. I expected David to encounter some cultural challenges, but I didn't foresee having to make adjustments of my own.

We arrived at the house that was part of David's meager salary package, with all of our belongings piled into a borrowed cattle trailer provided by Ann and Frank. They took some time off to help us move. We were instructed to call the college when we were 15 minutes out so someone could meet us with the key. After being in the south for numerous years, I expected some sort of welcoming group, perhaps students eager to help the new prof or staff members ready to aid a fellow academician. Instead a harried secretary met us at a gas station along the route, gave us the key, apologized for the President who had responded to a family emergency, and drove hastily away.

At the house, the boys ran amuck patting their mouths to make "wo, wo, wo, wo," sounds in a childish imitation of Indians at a pow-wow. Unfortunately I had entertained them en route with a bit of historical trivia, including the fact that we would be living only an hour or so from where Custer made his last stand at the Battle of Little Big Horn. While the savages expended bottled up energy, I directed the others in their unpacking chore. Mountains of boxes were stacked in every room, generally with content labels facing outward. By nightfall, the beds were assembled and the linens and bath towels dug out.

I herded reluctant aboriginals into the shower by pretending it was a waterfall. When they emerged appropriately wet, if not exactly clean, I tucked them both into sleeping bags on the bottom bunk, which I draped with a Mexican blanket so they could continue their charade by sleeping in a tent-like structure. After listening to them chant their evening prayers to the Great Spirit in the sky, I dragged my weary bones into the living room.

David stood in the middle of the room facing a static-filled television screen. The window was wide open. My friend Ann was framed in light spilling into the darkness. She was looking up shouting, "Try turning it more to the west."

"Right there, right there," David suddenly screamed as a picture emerged from the snow, only to be swallowed up again. "No. No. Too far. Turn it back, turn it back."

The parrot in the yard echoed his frustration. The lackey on the roof hollered, "Well, make up your mind."

After a bit more of this bedlam, the news anchor on the TV quit fading in and out of an unseasonal blizzard.

"With all of these boxes, you decided the TV antenna took precedence?" I asked.

"We were all tired and needed a news break," my grinning husband explained.

I was worn out, and the others had worked even harder, providing the grunt labor while I directed traffic. If they needed an escape hatch, who was I to quibble. David folded out the hide-a-bed, and all four of us piled on to watch the news and have a late night chuckle with Johnny Carson.

The next day, the Rimrock College boss-man showed up with a belated welcome. He suggested David take a week to settle in before reporting to work. After seven days of alternately emptying boxes and playing tourist, our friends said their goodbyes. David headed off to the college, and I walked the boys to their first day of school – Josh was in the second grade and Zach in the first.

I returned home to a silent house. With our imported help, all of the boxes were emptied and everything in its place. I wandered aimlessly from room to room, straightening pictures and rearranging knickknacks. I turned on the radio to banish the silence. Two voices discussing a harsh winter, forecast by the Farmer's Almanac, invaded my quiet home. After listening to their chatter for a few minutes, I sat down at my typewriter. The drum of keys spilled words onto pristine paper. An hour later I stopped.

#

Wheat Feet Divine Answer to Cold Extremities

BY SYDNEY LANDER

Although born in New Orleans, in many ways I am northern, having moved to Alaska when I was three. I speak rapidly and enunciate my words. I am frank when asked my opinion. I resist hugging total strangers and sometimes must even force myself to accept familial embraces. The dominant characteristic I retain from my northern upbringing, though, is cold feet – literally.

When God called David to minister at a Baptist College in Montana, my resistance stemmed from cold feet. Had they been of the figurative variety, God could have calmed my fears with assurances that He would overcome. Unfortunately my cold feet were literal. Short of a miracle, God couldn't banish them. I didn't even ask, knowing such a request was selfish.

Instead I did something infinitely more understandable; I fought God. I was in illustrious company. Gideon fought God, as did Jacob, Samson, Jonah, and numerous other eminent Biblical characters. Moses, though, was my personal favorite with his protestations at the burning bush.

My frozen bush experience went something like this:

"Take off your shoes, Sydney, for you are standing on holy ground."

"But, God, you know I have cold feet. If I take off my shoes, my feet will turn to blocks of ice."

"Very well, then. Keep your shoes on while your feet follow David to Montana."

"Montana? Surely you jest."

"I do have a sense of humor, but right now I'm perfectly serious."

"You realize that Montana is a land of fierce winters. Winds howl, blizzards rage, and your breath freezes, not to mention your feet."

"I created Montana, Sydney. Those howling winds are playful and cool during the summer heat. The snow that blankets the land prepares it to yield abundant crops when the seasons change. Consider the vast heavens, the beauty of the firmament displayed on a black velvet sky. Picture seas of waving wheat under a brilliant blue canopy."

"But my feet, God. You forgot about my aching feet."

"Enough with the feet, already. You won't venture into the frozen north alone. I have given you David. He will see to it that your cold feet aren't a hindrance."

"David? He won't even let me stick my cold feet under his back at night to warm them."

"Yes. David."

"But."

"No more buts, Sydney Rae Lander. Remember your fleece. If I can compel David to get up with your boys, don't you think I can take care of your feet?"

I put out a fleece when David told me God was calling him to Montana. I asked God to have David volunteer to get up with the boys as a sign that He was leading us there. God had performed that impossible feat.

Embarrassed, I quit my complaining, but deep in my heart, I still harbored the fear of returning my sensitive feet to the cold north. I not only complained to God. I complained to David.

The week before we were to leave for Montana, David took me out for a romantic dinner. He spared no expense. We ate a sumptuous meal followed by a sinfully rich dessert. Finally the waiter brought out a silver tray. He removed the domed cover and said, "For you, Madam."

On the tray sat the strangest things I'd ever seen. They looked sort of like slippers suffering from pre-eclampsia. I picked up the swollen foot-shaped objects and immediately dropped them into my lap. They must've weighed a couple of pounds each.

"What are they? Foot weights to strengthen my ankles?"

"No."

David wore a silly grin.

"Well?"

"They're wheat feet."

"Wheat feet?"

"I read somewhere that raw, dry grain like wheat can be bagged in cloth and heated in a microwave. The result is a warmer – in this case a foot warmer. I used unprocessed rice to make these because I didn't have any wheat. But wheat feet sounds better than rice feet."

In awe, I examined David's invention.

"You mean if I put these in the microwave for a few minutes and then put them on my cold feet, I'll have warm feet?"

"That's the theory."

When we got home, David fixed me an icy footbath. When my feet were unbearably cold, he brought me my heated wheat feet. In five minutes, my feet were toasty.

That night I apologized to God. He'd been right. My husband listened to my complaints and offered a solution. Cold feet were no longer a hindrance. This northern girl could return to her frigid roots without fear.

#

That column was framed and hung in Mama's study. It was the one that launched her nationwide career. In a glass-fronted box underneath was one of her first pair of wheat feet. When the other one wore out, Daddy had framed the remaining one to go with the column. Syd had worn out numerous pairs of wheat feet during their sojourn in the north. Once they returned to Louisiana, she had only used them occasionally, a few times each winter.

"I wish my cold feet were literal," Faith said out loud. "There is no magical warmer for figurative cold feet."

"Try prayer." The thought came unbidden.

"Look, God," she said, looking upward. "I've already tried prayer. It didn't help."

"No, you tried a monologue. When you talk to yourself it doesn't help. Prayer involves listening to Me."

"Yeah, yeah. Love never fails and all that forgiveness bull. I heard You."

"But did you listen?"

"I listened as well as Mama did."

"She's not supposed to be your model."

"She was a good wife and mother."

"But not a perfect one."

"Well, if it's perfection you're looking for, you might as well look elsewhere."

"There was only one perfect human. Perhaps you should compare yourself to Him."

"I'd feel miserable about myself."

"Sometimes misery leads to joy."

Faith picked up her Bible, turned to Exodus 3, and reread the story of Moses and the burning bush.

"He wasn't a very good listener in the beginning," she thought. "Maybe there's still hope for me."

"Okay, God, here's the deal," she said. "I'm going to try to stop arguing with you and listen. I've already told Aaron that I'm willing to work on the trust issue. We're going to have to decide before too long whether to call off the wedding. Help me to weigh the issues carefully and make the right decision."

Satisfied that she'd taken the first step towards a solution, Faith fell into a deep sleep. She was too tired to listen with her heart to the words God spoke into the silence.

"Confess your sins one to another as unto the Lord."