Children Who Finish the Course
Thirty-nine miles away from Metropolis, we drove into tiny Tamms, Illinois, where we passed a train depot. Ray sweetly turned around so I could take some pictures. We found a picturesque, but seemingly abandoned, site. The angled architecture was unique, surprising, and interesting. It is hard to see in this picture but the center section with the white door is straight across. To its right are two windows; that end of the building angles toward the camera. To the left of the door is a longer section of the building that also has two windows; that end of the building also angles toward the camera. The depot must have been beautiful in its day.
The sign in front tells that it was built in 1899, was restored in 1986, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
As you can see, the paint is peeling.
Weeds grow along the path to the preserved stretch of track out back.
A little research while writing this post told me that two railroad lines once shared this depot. The Chicago and Eastern Illinois (C&EI) and the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio crossed outside the depot in Tamms, thus creating the need for its unique shape. This photo shows where the two tracks crossed. At the end of this section of track is a red caboose. One track was parallel to one angled section of the depot, and the other track was parallel to the angled section on the other end of the building.
I thought of the contrast between the gleaming Superman statue standing in pristine condition in Metropolis and the faded depot in Tamms. Superman was dedicated in 1993. Tamms restored its historic depot just seven years earlier in 1986. Why does Superman gleam while the depot deteriorates?
In both Metropolis and Tamms, people cared enough to begin a good work that would serve their communities. The Superman statue in Metropolis drew tourists and tourist dollars to the community. Perhaps travelers on state highway 127 stopped to explore the depot in Tamms, and I can imagine meetings held in its Village Hall. Perhaps villagers used it for baby showers, wedding receptions, and family reunions, too.
Metropolis still benefits from what was completed in 1993, while the benefits the depot’s restorers imagined seem to have faded along with the building. I don’t know the reasons for the difference. I do know that the population of Tamms was about 1/3 less in 2020 than it had been in 2010. Whatever the reasons, the lesson is clear. It is not enough to have a good idea and begin well if we don’t plan how to keep that good work continuing and growing.
When we think about our families, we don’t want our children to have great success while homeschooling and then have their lives fall apart later. We don’t want to be faithful ourselves and the generations after us to be worldly.
We need to stay faithful ourselves and teach our children to stay faithful so that we and they and all of our succeeding generations are able to say with the apostle Paul:
I have fought the good fight,
I have finished the course,
I have kept the faith;
in the future there is laid up for me
the crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous Judge,
will award to me on that day;
and not only to me, but also
to all who have loved His appearing.
2 Timothy 4:7-8