— Chapter Eight —
A wedding invitation from a good friend was so appreciated. I clung to the smallest semblance of social acceptance. It felt good to be invited, to be treated normally rather than pitied. As I stood in the midst of a crowded reception, mingling among friends and acquaintances, I kept bumping into the same rhetorical question conditioned for a mechanical, uncomplicated response. “How are you doing?” rolled out like cubes from an ice tray—cold and impersonal, waiting for my “Just fine,” response.
Instead, I replied to one who asked, “I’m doing okay right now, hanging in there only because God is giving me the strength to do so. Thank you so much for asking.”
I must have shocked the inquirer. He simply gave a polite nod, looking a little uncomfortable, then graciously backed away with no reply. Suddenly I felt conspicuous and embarrassed, wishing I’d used the “just fine” rhetoric.
“Why is it so hard to share with others?” I asked myself while aimlessly wandering among the guests. “Is there anyone who isn’t afraid to be real—to rip off his mask? What does it mean to be real?”
Tossing around that same question during my Monday morning commute, I had uninterrupted time to sift for answers … until a bright unexpected sunrise temporarily blinded me as I turned a corner. Immediately I pulled down the visor and stretched my neck to block the sun from my eyes.
“How convenient,” I thought, still thinking about that encounter at the wedding. Perhaps people who don’t want to be real should walk around with visors. Just a flip of the wrist and reality can be conveniently blocked out!
After ordering a cup of coffee at the deli in my building, I pushed the elevator button to the second floor. Friday’s unfinished tasks were stacked on my desk. The monthly bank statement needed to be reconciled, telephone messages demanded a response, and several copy requests had to be at the printer before noon. Time was of essence as our office geared up for another national conference. Volunteers assisted from time to time, and according to my calendar a volunteer was scheduled to come in around ten.
When he arrived, we stood at the doorway to the workroom with several hundred letters neatly stacked on the table needing to be stuffed and postmarked. Slightly amused at the task, he chuckled, “Well, it’s better than sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring!”
After a couple more amicable exchanges, he shared why he had time on his hands. His former job had been eliminated in a corporate downsizing and he was waiting for responses from over two hundred resumes. I asked how he was coping during this difficult time. Surprisingly, he responded with more than the usual “just fine” rhetoric.
“I’ve struggled with losing my self-worth,” he stated openly. “I’ve had to fight negative thoughts constantly like, ‘Why don’t you run your car off this bridge.’ Or, ‘You’re never going to find a job with the seniority and pay you once had. You’re too old now and the job market has passed you by.”’
“I know how fierce battles can be,” I concurred, “but I’m learning to sift for truth and not believe the lies.”
I couldn’t help but ask, “Has anyone been helping you or encouraging you during this time?”
“No” he answered. “During the fifteen months of unemployment, only three people have called or extended a friendly handshake.” Then he quickly defended the reasons why. “I’ve told only a few people. It’s too uncomfortable for me to admit that I have a need.” Then he voluntarily added, You know the John Wayne mentality, real men don’t cry!”
His remark sparked my curiosity even more. I risked being overindulgent by asking, “How is your wife handling this? Does she have friends who encourage or pray with her?”
“Not really. She purposely keeps herself busy. Right now she’s taking a couple of classes at the community college. That helps to block it out of her mind. We don’t discuss it very much because I don’t want to let her know how I really feel. It would cause her to worry.”
He ended our chat by picking up the first of many letters as I ran back to my office to pick up a phone page.
On my commute home, I couldn’t shake this morning’s conversation. Why is it so hard to let friends know you hurt? What kept this man from sharing his pain with his wife and others, from wanting to be real?
As soon as I got home, I searched my husband’s library for an old children’s book once used as a sermon illustration. The Velveteen Rabbit was tucked in among books with much deeper theological truths. But this endearing little tale, read to thousands of children while cradled in parent’s arms, imparted more than a lighthearted story about Rabbit. The adults who read between the lines discovered that it costs to be real. According to old Skin Horse, there’s pain when your hair is being loved off. Loose joints and shabbiness are part of the deal.
Is that what it takes to be real? The rub? Do difficult circumstances rub off one’s pretentious veneer, exposing the real person? Even though it can be excruciatingly painful and uncomfortable, is this how God brings out inner beauty?
I know God loves me, but there has been a lot of pain. I know that my husband’s abandonment was not God’s perfectwill, but His permissive will. This didn’t take Him by surprise as it did me. But what about the other things that rubbed? My mom’s Alzheimer’s disease, my dad’s unexpected surgery, my sister’s cancer scare, processing my children’s pain? Do they help me to become real, exposing my worn-off places? Does each situation make me looser in the joints so that I will openly and unashamedly tell others His story through me?
A rub. I scheduled a flight alone to see my first grandchild. Love mixed with pain as I cradled this little miracle in my arms. My dreams for this grandchild and others to come were dashed against a stone. While rocking Matt to sleep one night, I whispered, “There isn’t going to be Grandma and Granddad to enjoy you together, precious little one. When you visit, there’s only going to be me.”
Another rub. My mom had been afflicted by the dreaded Alzheimer’s disease. I didn’t know how severe it had become until her long-distance call began the unraveling. “I just sold my house,” she told me over the phone. That might have been okay with some, but I was shocked because she hadn’t bought another house! She had nowhere to go except to move in with either my sister or me. Immediately I called her realtor who was relieved because she didn’t know how to contact me. “It sold within a few days,” she confirmed. “Your mom needs to be out of her house by the end of next month.”
“How could she do this now with only two months before Stacy’s wedding! I don’t have time right now to deal with her needs!”
My emotions were running rampant. Deep down I was frightened because my mom’s irrational decisions were confirming earlier suspicions. I knew she didn’t understand, and that added to my frustration. So I had to ask my boss for more time off to simplify her years of accumulated stuff and oversee her long-distanced move to my sister in Texas. After her belongings were loaded on the truck, Mom stayed with me for a few days before I put her on the plane. The events had been frustrating. I was exhausted.
Wedding frenzy had also begun. A dress form in the living room modeled the wedding gown awaiting more beads. Sharon’s maid-of-honor dress lacked a finished hem. Gifts were stacked in every unused space. Most of the jobs had been delegated and I felt that for the first time I could take a deep breath …until my air conditioner broke down during a heat wave at the end of August.
Another rub. “No! This can’t happen! Not now!”
With that I slumped down in a kitchen chair with my head in my hands and cried from total exhaustion. After a few minutes I remembered that Stan, one of the staff pastors, had offered to help me with any major problem since he once had been an apartment manager.
“Sue and I will be right over,” was his heart-warming reply to my call.
After finding nothing wrong with the unit, he observed that the emergency switch was off. That was why the air hadn’t clicked on. We agreed that my mom must have turned it off when she was here those few days. I was thankful that it was such a minor thing.
Afterward, I offered them a glass of iced tea as we sat around the kitchen table waiting for the air to cool. They asked how I was doing. Feeling that they really cared, it took me a few minutes to answer because of the lump in my throat. I shared how all of the recent happenings had taken their toll. I felt emotionally drained, wiped out and pulled in every direction.
They listened. They understood. Then they began to share how God had been faithful to them during some of their bleakest moments. Their story began at the place where Stan had been diagnosed with a rare environmental illness causing his family to have to move to a place where there was little pollution–a cabin in the mountains of Northern California. Because Stan couldn’t inhale synthetics of any kind, they had to dress in clothes made of cotton and line the walls with aluminum foil. Shortly after their move, their three children got sick and they ended up having to sleep in their car because of an unseasonably drop in temperature and no heat in the cabin yet. That combination of the children’s sickness and no heat brought them to the brink of total discouragement.
Then Sue and Stan shared that when they were at their lowest ebb, close friends willing to shower with a special soap for Stan’s benefit drove up the mountain bringing food and much-appreciated gifts. Overwhelmed by their love and generosity, Stan told me that after they left, he stood near the edge of the mountain remembering a promise God had given him before the move.
“Yet [Abraham] did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:20-21 NIV).
“Those three years were very difficult for us,” Stan admitted. “As I turned the pages of my Bible with gloved hands through holes in a Plexiglas box, God taught me lessons I’ve never forgotten. Now we know the meaning of ‘what He promised, He will do.’ We were encouraged and our faith was strengthened.”
We then joined hands and they prayed while a steady stream of tears persisted down my cheeks.
“I believe there is a point,” Sue empathized, “when God does not allow it to get any worse. Donna, in my heart, I don’t believe God will allow any more.” With that, we hugged each other and they left.
Pulling myself together, I had much to think about. Not one word of regret came from their mouths. Hearing about Stan and Sue’s rubbings helped me to keep going. I felt as though I had been picked up one more time, brushed off one more time, and sent on my way one more time, all because of the love and vulnerability my friends shared with me that day.
So Abraham did not waver in unbelief but was strengthened in his faith. Do I dare put my name there? Do I dare say, Donna did not waver in unbelief, but was strengthened in her faith?
“Lord, I did waver! Did I fail the test?”
“No,” I just had to believe. God knew I was wavering. He also knew I needed encouragement, so He sent Stan and Sue. This was just another way for me to see how He worked.
“Thank you for being real” I wrote in my note. “Thanks for not withholding the truly tough times. I needed to hear how God provided for you in your bleakest moments.”
They were not embarrassed by their loose joints or concerned if their shabbiness was exposed. It encouraged me to know that in the midst of all their trials, they looked to God and He provided. And that is what He did for me.
“So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised” (Hebrews 10:35, 36 NIV, emphasis added).
I’d rather live in my fractured world that’s real than in a world that is not fractured, but is just a game.24
Copyright 2001, 2004 Donna Christensen
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Published Online by: The Biblical Reader
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