A Call to a Deeper Love

A child once asked me how I survived in the days before the internet, and I said “we did our research at the library.” When he asked what I did when the information wasn’t available there, I answered “I went without it.”

The same boy asked me what we did before cell phones, and I said “we made appointments and kept them, and we spoke to each other, not to our phones.”

In the old days, people had to survive without the luxuries of today. They appreciated whatever clothing they wore, whatever food they ate, the houses where they lived. The Martin family of A Call to a Deeper Love don’t smile in their photos, yet they appear contented. In fact nobody ever smiles in old photos; they were costly, and having a photo taken was a special occasion, not a day to be looking goofy with a silly grin. Those who grew up in the 1800’s knew the value of quality to their lives.

The Martins were one such group. They were a family in France of whom several members are saints. Zelie, the mother, struggled to raise several children and manage a business at the same time, never wavering in her faith. She was beatified, and her children canonized into sainthood. Her daughter became a nun at 15, and died of tuberculosis at age 24. Years after her death, she became Saint Therese of Lisieux. Like her mother Zelie, she willingly accepted her fate; when Zelie found she had cancer, she openly admitted “I have not been cured because my time is ending.”

The Martin family lived in an era before penicillin, chemo therapy, stents, and heart medications. If you got sick in those days, you died. You needed to accept when your life was over, and unfortunately, a lot of people, including Zelie Martin, had to accept their children dying as well. Nowadays, people get sick because they neglect their health and they drain their family’s means with huge medical bills.

People may not have had as much in the “good old days” as they do now, but they appreciated whatever they had.