Mrs. Miller the Killer

Mrs. Miller the Killer did not tolerate insolence. 

This story is a scary one.  Parental guidance is suggested for scary teacher images, cruel and unusual punishment, and a crying 2nd grader.

Recently my wife and I were talking with a friend and reminiscing about childhood memories.  And we began to talk about embarrassing or memorable school experiences.

My first experience that I mentioned was my napping Kindergarten teacher.  Mrs. Sammons, who at the time seemed like she must have been 100 years old, although probably was only maybe 60 or so, was a kind lady but she liked her sleep time.

So each day as we had to put our heads down for nap time, we would wait for the moment when Mrs. Sammons would start grunting or snoring.  It was at that moment that heads would begin popping up all over the classroom and after a few moments of guessing whether her sleep-time sounds were genuine, we would take off around the room.

One time, Mrs. Sammons was still asleep when our parents came to pick us up.  That didn't go over so well, and Mrs. Sammons tried her very best to stay awake during nap time after that.

Then I talked about the mean school nurse who told me I had the "morning blues" and sent me back to class despite the fact that I had a fever of 102.  Mean old grouch-face.  She only reluctantly took my temperature the second time I entered her office to be rid of me and prove my diagnosis of "Morning Blues" and then was disappointed to see my triple-digit fever.

Then I brought it home with my story of Mrs. Miller the Killer.  

Mrs. Miller had been a staple of the 2nd grade for decades.  Her very name struck fear in the hearts of school children.  Her crazed old lady frizzy hair spoke of her psychotic personality.

There were rumors that years back that she had, in fact, murdered one of her students in a fit of rage.  The body was rumored to have been buried under the playground somewhere.

And the clown make-up with the blood red lips didn't do much to comfort her future victims either.

When the class lists were announced at the end of 1st grade, I was ecstatic that I was going to be in Mrs. Dost's class instead.  After all, Mrs. Dost was, as everyone knew, as easy as toast.

Unfortunately my euphoria did not last long.  Apparently we had to switch classes for certain subjects and I indeed would have to come face to face with Mrs. Miller the Killer.

One day I forgot to put my name on my paper.

And you would have thought that I murdered someone by the hysteria that it brought about to the unstable menace that was Mrs. Miller the killer.  Then again maybe not, given her reputation of murdering people herself.

Her over-the-top reaction to a 2nd grader forgetting to put his name on his paper was a searing reminder of how lucky we were that Mrs. Miller didn't have access to the the White House nuclear codes.

She informed me that I would be writing 500 times on lined paper the following literary treat:

"I will not forget to write my name, Billy Hughes, on my paper in Mrs. Miller's class."

Writing this literary torture 500 times was the forerunner to water boarding, although there is no doubt in my mind that Mrs. Miller the killer would in fact engage in water boarding if the principal would have allowed her to.

I spent most of the day in fear of both the evil Mrs. Miller and my mom.  You see, I wasn't allowed to go home until this monumental task was accomplished.  That meant that in all likelihood my mom would be sitting in the car after school wondering why her precious first-born son was not skipping gleefully from the school building to the car in the bright sunshine.

I spent all of lunch and recess and every free second during any additional class feverishly working on getting this heinous assignment done.

When school came to a close I was pretty much done and only had about 25 or so more times to write.  I nervously made my way over Mrs. Miller the Killer's lair and took a seat in the back of the room as I finished up the last lines of my enormous tome.

When I finished, it was only a few minutes past the dismissal of school, so I figured that I would probably not get in trouble.

Shaking all over, I nervously made my way to the desk of Mrs. Miller and handed over my papers.

She took one look at the paper and then glared at me with the menacing glare of a serial killer.

"You didn't even number it.  I'm certainly not going to accept it like this.  You need to number them."

I took back the paper and made my way back to my desk.  Tears began strolling down my cheeks.  The jig was up.  My mom would now know that something was up.  It was going to take me the rest of my life to number this torturous assignment.

After what seemed like an entire calendar year, I finally finished the numbering and brought my work back up to Mrs. Miller.

The killer laughed maniacally like a deranged clown as she quickly looked over the assignment.

Then she began ripping the papers up into pieces and coldly stated, "Well, I guess you won't do that again in this class, will you?"

At this moment, I burst into hysterics the likes of which have only occurred again when gaggles of pre-teen girls have a sighting of Justin Bieber.

And at that moment, my mom came into the doorway looking for her son.

Amid sobs and a full-on snot eruption from my nose, my mom was able to ascertain that I had been in trouble, but was more annoyed at that moment with the nefarious Mrs. Miller for keeping me after school so late.

It is a moment that haunts me still.

Now, you might be thinking what this has to do with faith?

Sometimes we have to endure hardship.  Sometimes we have to confront pure evil.  And sometimes that is in the form of our leaders.

That certainly was the case in the 1 Samuel account of Hannah.  Desperate for a child, Hannah spent years on her knees pleading with God to open her womb and allow her the honor of having a child.

One week while praying at the temple, Hannah was weeping.  So passionate in petitioning her Lord for the miracle that she desperately needed in her life was Hannah, that she paid no attention to anyone around her.  Including the somewhat judgmental priest Eli.  1 Samuel 1:13-14 tells us:

"Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, 'How long will you keep on getting drunk? Get rid of your wine.'" 

Hannah was connecting deeply with her Lord.  She wasn't praying for show.  By contrast, Eli liked people to see him looking important.  He liked the attention.  And to him, like so many people who just don't get it, he thought her passion was drunkenness.

He mocked her, but she wouldn't relent.

Finally, Eli told her that God would answer her prayer.  Later, when Samuel was born, Hannah dedicated him to serving the Lord.

His faithfulness even as a young boy in serving in the temple before the Lord was a stark contrast the the children of Eli:

This sin of the young men was very great in the LORD's sight, for they were treating the LORD's offering with contempt. But Samuel was ministering before the LORD--a boy wearing a linen ephod."  (1 Samuel 2: 17-18)

Eli never really called his sons out on their wickedness.  They had been "treating the Lord's offering with contempt" for years.  It wasn't until the end of his life that Eli finally called them on their behavior.  And by then, it was too late.  

I believe that it was only because of Samuel's example that so greatly contrasted with what his sons were not doing that finally forced Eli into confronting the sin in his family.

Mrs. Miller will remain in my mind one of the greatest villains of mankind.  And her scary oppression of 2nd graders led to a fearful submission but a destruction of passion.  We obeyed out of fear, but she crushed our passion and desire for learning.  In every other class that year I loved learning.  In her class it was all I could do to not pee my pants in fear.

Hannah could have reacted the same way.  Eli was the big cheese at the temple.  His public mocking of her desperate pleas before the Lord could have discouraged her.  She could have obeyed him out of fear and abandoned her first love.  She could have run away out of fear and exploded into a Justin Bieber sighting type of meltdown.  She didn't.  She continued to press in closer to her Lord and plead her case.

And she was vindicated.

There will be Mrs. Millers and Elis in our lives.  If we want to take hold of what God has for us, and more importantly, who He truly is, we need to press in closer.  We need to push past the fear and embrace our deliverer.  God's word tells us in 2 Timothy 1:7:

"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."

Fear will keep us from the purpose God has for us.  More significantly, it will keep us from the source of our strength, Christ Jesus.  We need to be like Hannah and press in.  And we will see a blessing from that perseverance.  The God that delivered Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego from the fire, Daniel from the lion, David from the giant, the Israelites from Egypt, and so many other ordinary folks clinging to their life-line of faith in the midst of life-threatening fear-invoking circumstances will do so for you time and time again.

There is nothing that those great folks of the Bible have that we don't have.  If we have but the faith of a mustard seed, we can tell the Mrs. Millers of the world to go jump in a lake because our God is bigger.

That is the lesson we can take from the story of Hannah and Samuel.

And the lesson we can take from Mrs. Miller is that you should always write your stinkin' name on your paper.