The Three Longest Years

Cordell P. Schulten

Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies

Missouri Baptist University

Saint Louis, Missouri

In the summer of 1983, I was looking ahead to three years of law school. If what I had read in Scott Turow’s book One L, and what I had seen portrayed by John Houseman in the film The Paper Chase, was right, I was on the threshold of three of the most difficult and challenging years – the three longest years – of my life. I had come to law school at Saint Louis University married and with three small children, yet still convinced that I was heeding God’s call. Succeeding was not my first concern; survival would be sufficient. I found assurance in the story of Daniel and his companions who were forced by their captors to study for three years in Babylon, but were preserved by God and through his strength stood firm in faith. (Daniel 1)

The first year started well enough. My journal entries for those early months in the fall of ’83 contain scattered references to “opportunities to speak to others about the things of God,” “speaking at length to a 3d year student who is a Mormon” and even a few brief accounts of Bible studies with fellow law students. But, by the middle of the spring term, the journal read “preoccupied with school work and job projects . . . so no regular personal quite time.” Though I had begun my studies as a believer seeking to practice the discipline of daily devotions, the demands of law school had steadily pushed Bible reading and prayer time out of my daily routine. I started thinking less about God and more about me.

I had succumbed to the first year of law school. It had indeed “scared me to death,” and as I entered the second year, I was well on my way to being “worked to death.” My journal attests to this since I had completely left-off all entries by the summer of ’84. Although I had been convinced that the Lord was leading me to law school, I was no longer looking to Him to lead me through it. I began pursuing my own personal interests rather than seeking my family’s best interests. When interviews came around for summer internships, I signed-up with the big firms in the hope of landing a select position. Clerking for one of the largest firms in St. Louis that summer, I was lured all the more into aspiring to a life of affluence. Unlike my hero Daniel in Babylon, I began to dine at the king’s table.

My third year experience was true to form. I was, for the most part, “bored to death.” I had a prize offer to join the firm with whom I had done my internship. They even agreed to forego the ordinary rotation through their other practice areas and allowed me to plan on moving right into litigation. I was set. What I had forgotten, though, was how I had come to succeed when at first my thought had only been of survival. I was reminded through failure. I failed to when the trial advocacy competition and I failed to attain the final class rank for which I had been striving. Through those failures, the Lord called me back to him and gave me a renewed sense of his grace and of my need for constant dependence upon him. He alone had given me the grace and knowledge to succeed through my three longest years.

To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. ~ Daniel 1:17

15 April 2004