I'd grown up in a Christian home. I went to church every Sunday, even many Wednesdays. I went to AWANA. I memorized scripture, I accepted Christ personally. I was baptized. I sang the hymns, I prayed, I knew God wanted me to be good. I knew that I needed to live a life pleasing to Him. This was just a given. It was the life I knew. I primarily went to Christian schools, with only two years in a public school system. The first time, the culture shock was astounding. I couldn't believe the language I was hearing in open hallways. And none of the teachers said anything about it. That was the first crack in my shiny bubble.
The next crack surprisingly occurred in a Christian school setting...I learned that I could easily convince my parents I was at a sanctioned activity but be off doing whatever I wanted. That was a big crack. The kind of crack that makes you wonder if your parents really knew what they were talking about.
I still held to my faith, but I wasn't as diligent about it.
Fast forward a few years. I'm a bright shiny freshman in college, having graduated high school a year early I feel I have a bit to prove to the professors as I sit in class, feverishly taking notes and wondering how tests work in college and marveling at the "attendance policies." It was official. I was "grown up" and it was on me to decide if I'd learn or fail.
I had my goals. I would attend a community college, transfer into the local four year school, and then go on to law school. I would become a brilliant lawyer. My mother joked that it was so I could bang on tables and yell objection. I worked carefully with a transfer counselor to make sure not one hour of classes would be wasted. I knew that I would graduate with an Associates Degree in Applied Sciences, then go on to get my Bachelor of Arts with a concentration in Philosophy/Pre-Law. It was a perfect plan. I loved my Philosophy classes. Looking back, I think it's because that's when the rest of the bubble shattered and I realized that I couldn't just believe because I was told to. I couldn't just ride on the coattails of my parents' faith forever. I had to make it real.
Make it real? What does that even mean? As a teen I attended a few "Acquire the Fire" events. They were amazing. If you didn't leave without rededicating your life to God you clearly weren't paying attention. At the end of every prayer we were led in, the teacher would say "now, make it real." He meant to take his words and mull them over. Decide if we meant it and if we did, tell God so. It took me years to figure that out.
I was sitting in my very first Philosophy class, shiny brand new textbooks next to me, fresh notebook and pen. I was ready to learn. I was also a bit excited about the
What I believe? Didn't I just tell them? Maybe I didn't....that forced me to take a hard look at my life, my walk, my faith and decide if it really was mine or if I was just being obedient to my parents. (we'll just focus on the whole obedience thing in the aspect of reading my Bible, praying and going to church and not get into the whole I was an invincible 16 year old....)
I remember sitting in that classroom, fighting passionately for what I believe and it hit me. I do believe. I believe with every fiber of my being that God sent his son to this world, that He created the world that he sent his son into, knowing full well Jesus would be mocked, scorned, even hated and tortured.
I always knew it was a huge sacrifice. I got a better picture of it when I became a parent. The first time I had to take my daughter to the emergency room - they wrapped her in tight swaddling blankets to try to put an IV in her dehydrated little hand and she looked to me, screaming as if she was saying "mommy how could you let them do this to me?" I think I cried almost as much as she did. There I was knowing she had to go through this, and that I could not take her pain away. I had to stand there and watch my baby be poked over and over until they were finally able to get her IV in to give her restoring fluids and help her tiny sick body start to heal.
Funny the lessons God teaches through my daughter, but we'll get back to that another time.
I walked out of that Philosophy class floating on air and feeling a new passion for Christ. For the first time in my 17 years I KNEW exactly what I believed. That fueled me for a few more years and then I began to listen to the world around me...and slowly I let myself be led away...never all the way. I knew I still loved God, but I was too busy for church some Sundays. And reading my Bible could wait. I'd realize the place I was in and cry and repent but eventually I'd end up right back in that place again. I couldn't change until I was willing to change everything and it's entirely possible I have a touch of a stubborn streak (mom stop laughing.)
There I was, 21 years old, not really understanding how unhappy I was, but thinking "this is my life. I just need to live it." I was sound asleep on March 16, 2002. It was just before 7 in the morning and the phone rang. I rolled over toward it but decided to let my dad answer it. I'm glad I did. The caller was my step-grandfather. He had the news that would forever alter my young life. I still remember the pink flowered pajamas I was wearing as my dad came in the room. He sat down on my bed and looked at me as if the words were causing him pain. I said "what?" he just looked at me. I started to cry "what daddy, what's wrong?" His next words knocked all the air out of me. "[your brother] was killed in a car accident."
I instantly ranged every emotion thinking he had to be wrong. He had to have it wrong. The wrong person. It's a common name...I went from it can't be to oh no to I can't breathe in seconds. He told me he was going to see my mother and I could come if I wanted to. I tried to think. I had plans for the day, but they needed to be cancelled. I made the two calls I needed to and put on a black turtleneck with Michael Jordan's number on it...borrowed from my brother's closet years before and never returned. In a haze I walked to the driveway and it hit me and I started to violently throw up.
Family friends arrived, crying and saying they couldn't just stay home when we were going through this. They clung to us, they prayed with us, they cried with us. Dad and I drove in silence, save for my sniffles and sobs. My brother was living in a fairly large city at the time, and I had assumed something had happened on a highway in his Mustang. We drove past the church I was attending, and I realized a truck was being pulled up the embankment, a truck with the top cut open and one of my brother's closest friends looked up with a tear-stained face as we drove past. I pressed my hand to the glass as if I could reach out and comfort him. I remember gasping and asking my dad if that was where it had happened. He said he didn't know what happened, only that it had happened.
We pulled into my mother's driveway, and I saw her through the window. She looked out and saw me and drew in a huge breath. She pushed away all of the people near the door so that she could be the first to greet me. She was wearing a yellow Old Navy fleece with blue letters. A single tear was on her right cheek. She hugged me and I asked "what happened?" She did a good job of keeping a semi steady voice as she quietly told me [driver] was driving. My breath drew in so sharp it hurt. "Was he drunk?" She couldn't speak, she only nodded.
You see, I knew this guy. We grew up with him. He was infamous for drinking, doing drugs and being incredibly stupid and driving anyway. This time it cost my brother's life. My legs fell out from under me as I started to scream. "I want him prosecuted! This is his fault! it's not fair!" My mom was trying to be gentle "Eye, no, no..." I looked past her shoulder to see our pastor standing there. I was shaking with rage and pain and asked how I was supposed to ever forgive that.
I will never forget his words. "Right now you don't. Right now you grieve. Right now you feel, and forgiveness will come later."
Later there was a slight misunderstanding and my nine year old sister thought we were unable to afford a casket for my brother. She returned from her room with an envelope, her unspent allowance of a dollar and a note saying it was for mom so we could get a casket. My mother clung to my sister and the shards of my shattered heart broke even more and I fled to the room I still had at my mother's house. I threw myself on the bed and cried until there were no more tears, and then I sobbed some more. I cried out to God saying I didn't understand. Why, why, why whywhwywhwywhy....and I felt a strong pair of arms encircle me. I opened my eyes expecting to see my dad...but I was alone in that room. I still felt the arms. God had not abandoned me. And while I may never understand why my brother had to die, I understand that I was never alone, even hiding in that room crying myself into dehydration.
The next days were a blur of preparations for the wake and funeral, countless agonizing calls to let people who shouldn't have to read it in a paper know the tragic news, then finally the funeral and burial. I stood there in that cemetery watching the casket be lowered into the ground thinking at any moment someone would pop out and tell us it had all been a cruel joke and my brother was fine.
For most of the world, business as usual resumed the next day. I felt like it was a betrayal. What, we bury him then forget him? After that, I started to notice changes in the people around me. It was as if this death had finally woken some up - the things my brother had shared with his friends, inviting them to church....it clicked and hearts softened and opened to the possibility that maybe they really did need to believe this God stuff. As for me, the thought of Heaven comforted me and I slowly started walking back to my real path from my selfish detour.
Over the next few months, much changed in my life, my eyes were opened to the life I was living and how wrong it was...I faced new heartaches, but with them came such a freedom. I was back.
I'm not saying I've never slipped back into selfishness and my own way because I'd be lying.
I'd love to tell you how I found the straight and narrow and I've never strayed from the path again. I'd love to tell you how perfect life is....but again...I'd be lying.
My path is more winding than straight. And there are days when I stop and sit under a tree instead of walking. But, the important thing is, I woke up. I realized I need to be on that path and talking isn't enough. I need not only to believe, I need to understand WHY I believe.
Do you believe? Do you know why? Do you know what to do with it?
I could sit here and write for hours about all I believe and why....and maybe you'd find it inspirational. Maybe it'd move you to pray, but I fear it would only provoke an emotional response.
You see, I've learned that a lot of times it's emotions that put us on that high, but it can never be sustained. We attend a good service, we read something profound...it fuels us for a few days but it's not sustained because it's kind of like a contact high. It's not until we can sit there, staring in a mirror knowing I, myself, me, I am a sinner. I deserve the wages of my sin. I don't deserve grace but somehow God showed me mercy. His love for me is so great that He was willing to let his only son go into a world that was doomed, to be mocked. hated. spit on. tortured. Until we face the reality of what happened, pick it apart and find the personal aspect, we cannot know that we believe, much less why.
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