A Chicago Lawyer Sees Sam I 119

could furnish these and I asked her to please write again and spell out what had happened to herself and in her home. When she complied, the tale so moved me that I phoned her for permission to use it anonymously in this very space.

Dorothy’s Half of the Story

This is I, Dorothy, the client. I had called my attorney in desperation, having lost all hope of saving my marriage. I needed legal help, but I also had a secret motive for seeing him. I admitted to myself that he was the kind of a person with whom I might wish to have a clandestine relationship. I had known him well, and from the time my marriage began to sour I had been daydreaming about him.

When I arrived at his residence I was excited, and in my love- starved condition, as we talked my anticipation increased—that is, until a certain point in the conversation. Then something happened. I can’t remember how or what occurred, but there was an exact moment when I felt sure that a clandestine relationship with this man was not for me. Suddenly it was as if tall walls had gone up around him—probably when he referred to the scriptural injunction against divorce.

I left my lawyer in a very thoughtful mood and when I reached home I felt humiliated, completely. Never in my life had I been as angry and as frustrated. I had had a secret purpose in my heart, but at no time had I revealed my desire for an intimate relationship, and I had done nothing nor made any suggestion that he could reject. In that sense I had no business feeling humiliated, but for thirty-six hours I felt lower and more ashamed of myself than at any other time in my whole life.

Looking back on this experience, I wonder if there isn’t a close relationship between humiliation and humility. I had rarely been humbled before, and God was using my tangled circumstances to help me to learn through suffering and to prepare me for what lay ahead. There was still little affection between my husband and myself—it took two more months for that—but I was praying more often and the drab, hollow routine at home became tolerable.

Then John and I were invited to a weekend house party at the home of old friends. Their guest room was occupied and John and I took the davenport in the living room. Lights out and quiet for