— Chapter Twenty-Two —
For days now, the skies have opened up and deluge of rain has saturated everything. Not only had it been dark and gloomy outside, but a storm was brewing within my soul. Ominous clouds began to roll in after I had talked with each one of my children about their plans for the upcoming Fourth of July.
Strong winds picked up when Phil shared that he and Cynthia and their children were driving from Texas to Mississippi for a family reunion with Cynthia’s family. Rumblings continued upon hearing that Sharon and Chris and their children were planning a family picnic around one of the North Carolina lakes with Chris’ parents. Stacy and John were going to enjoy a day in the Delaware sun golfing with John’s parents.
Lightning seared my heart as I stood drenched in this deluge of despair. I felt as though I might as well have been living on Mars because of my distance from them. I chose to believe that all my children were bonding with their spouses’ families and I would end up being totally ignored and forever alone.
In the past I had always dreamed that my family would gravitate back home on such occasions. But now, because of the painful memories, home must not be warm to my children anymore.
“Oh, God, this is NOT what I wanted! This is NOT what I prayed for! Will my family just fade away like an old photograph? Will we become mere recollections of the past? Parched memories? With all my children cleaving to their spouses’ families, I’m afraid I won’t fit in. It’s so unfair, God! My home has been violated!”
All my dreams of planning extended family vacations, sewing little dresses for my granddaughters, watching my grandsons playing ball in the backyard were nothing more but smoldering ashes. “Lord, what is significant about this day?”
My intensified pain turned into intensified anger and that frightened me. I knew the consequences of anger. I had grown up with angry parents.
Looking for help, I picked up A. W. Tozer’s little book, The Pursuit of God with its heavily worn dog-eared pages. In Chapter Two, “The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing,” I read, “The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things.”67 I asked God to clarify “abnegation of all things,” or, as Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20, “crucifying or dying” to all my dreams.
I stretched out on the carpet with my arms extended, as if on a cross. Tears rolled down the sides of my face as I struggled to pray. “Lord, how do you die? How do you die to people you love? How do you die to these lonely feelings? Lord, how do you give up everything that is precious? If I were dead, I would have no feeling. But Lord, I am alive and I do feel! Please help me understand.”
As I looked at the ceiling, a profane assault interrupted. “Give it up! Who do you think you are? You’re no Tozer! Get a grip! Go downstairs and treat yourself to a bowl of ice cream you bought the other day. Then you’ll feel better. You need to forget about all of this. Don’t get so out of touch with reality!”
Even though I didn’t give in to the ice cream attack, the distraction was successful enough to get me up off the floor. Yet all day I tried to understand what it meant to die to my deepest desires and, with open hands, give them to my Father. I went to bed with no closure to my struggle.
“Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24 NASB).
I awakened early Sunday morning, went to church then came straight home. That familiar sick feeling in the pit of my stomach began to churn. I was also well aware that the joy God had given me was waning. I wanted it back, but I couldn’t shake this heaviness. It frightened me to think that I was slowly going back to square one in my walk with the Lord as anger and bitterness welled up inside. The accolades of past victories were slipping away.
Psalm 100 had joy and gladness in it, so I purposefully wrote it down in my journal and circled all the “joy” words as I ate my salad alone.
“Make
a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness: come before His
presence with singing.
Know ye that the Lord he is God:
it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves;
we are his peoples, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving,
and into his courts with praise:
be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting;
and his truth endureth to all generations”
(Psalm 100 KJV, emphasis added).
After a long Sunday afternoon, I met for Bible Study group that evening. All seven friends could tell something was wrong. “Donna, this is not like you!” Marguarite observed. Jody, Sharon, and LaRose agreed. “What’s wrong?”
I shared the conversations I’d had with my children. Although the Bible Study group understood, everyone mildly exhorted that I had to let them go. “You can’t depend on what your children do to determine how you’re going to get through this. You’ve got to give that up! ”
Deep down I knew they were right! I knew I needed to depend more on God rather than them. But it was hard.
My heart was heavy when I got home. Even though I wasn’t sleepy, I decided to go to bed. Slipping on my p.j.’s, I pulled down the covers, plumped up the pillows and put them behind my back. I crossed my arms then stared at the wall. Usually at moments like these, I would be on my knees, especially when I realized how much I needed God. But tonight I didn’t feel like it. I didn’t want to pray. I wiggled my feet back and forth under the covers like a kid in an adult body, opting not to do what I knew to do. A childhood memory drifted in as my childish actions continued.
When I was a little girl, my family would drive up Bent Mountain for weekend getaways in the country. My dad and his siblings had built a cabin to serve as a gathering place for family get-togethers. Because my family didn’t live on a farm like my dad’s brother and sisters, we were considered “city folk.” That meant we got to stay in the cabin with other “city folk” relatives.
Back then, the cabin was secured by a gate with a rope looped around a fence post. When my family would drive up to the gate, my sister and I would beg our dad to let us ride it as it as it swung open. With delightful squeals of “yahoo” and “giddy-up,” we giggled as we waited for the gate to buck against a rock that stopped its swing. Happily, we would jump off and raced each other toward the cabin looking forward to good times that lay ahead. That gate opened up another world for us, filled with adventure and hours of Chinese checkers with kind relatives, not arguing parents.
As I scooted down in the bed a little more to rest my head, I thought about being a child once again, but now swinging atop heaven’s gate. The Lord had given me permission. He’d let me swing there all day if I wanted because I was His child. But swinging on heaven’s gate didn’t bring the excitement or giggles like it had in the country because I was lugging around this heavy burden. I felt like Christian in John Bunyan’s, Pilgrim’s Progress, except for the fact that I was in already in the Celestial City … but was still holding on to my burden.
“What have you got there?” the Lord asked. He looked into my sack that reeked with anger, bitterness, and self-pity. “Donna, let that go! I don’t want you dragging that horrible stench through My courts. There is so much here for you to enjoy without that. You can explore all the crevasses in my holy places and find blessings with your name written on them. I want you to have joy. I want you to worship Me with gladness. I want you to giggle—to laugh and be free! You don’t have to be lonely and afraid. My Spirit will empower you to overcome your anger, bitterness and self-pity. But you have to let go.
“And your dreams...don’t keep them in a box. Open it up and give them to Me. Allow Me to fill your emptiness. That’s what ‘abnegation of all things’ is about!”
“Lord, it’s so hard to let go—especially my children’s hearts! Next to letting my husband go, this is the hardest thing I’ve had to do!”
I thought how foolish it would be to try to manipulate my children’s hearts or make them feel guilty when they didn’t respond the way I wanted them to. That would only cause more pain for us all. Eventually, they would resent me. If I held them too tightly, I could suffocate the love that we now share.
“Lord, I can’t win! If I don’t give them to You, I will end up a bitter old woman. I don’t want that. So I must release them. You know how much I love them. If loving means letting go, then I must.
“And Lord, if it is too hard for them to come home, then I will go to them. I will go so that I might bless them, expecting nothing in return. Lord, everyday I will pray for them. Everyday I will entrust their hearts to You.”
And with that, I fluffed my pillow and lay down.
“Good night, Father. I think I can sleep now.”
Copyright 2001, 2004 Donna Christensen
All rights reserved.
Published Online by: The Biblical Reader
www.biblicalreader.com