Paideuo

When I was just out of High School, I lived with my mother and teenage sister in a small apartment.  I often remember those days as a time of stagnant sadness, watching as profound depression slowly crushed my mother.  I call it profound because this wasn’t the kind of depression that’s fashionable these days, the kind that you only notice after the pills make you feel better.  No, this was the kind of depression that usually ends very badly.

This depression was defeat on all levels.  It was loneliness that stretched into the future like a curving tunnel with no end in sight.  It was failure and self-doubt and fear and humiliation.  This was suffering that scraped out her insides until she became hollow; it sent her scrambling into the shadows to hide.  She became a puppet that smiled when it was time to smile and slept when it was time to sleep.

Seeing her like that probably should have broken my heart. I recognized the sadness, but in those days I was hypnotized by my own demons.  I was comfortably numb, floating along like Yogi Bear on the sweet smell of a picnic basket.  I left my mother alone to take that beating all by herself.  

Looking back, I wish I could say that someone stepped in with a mighty prayer.  I wish I could say that God flew in the window on a sparkly rainbow with His Santa-sack full of blessings, and saved the day by making all of our dreams come true.  But that’s not what happened.  God wasn’t invited to this party, at least as far as I knew.

Instead, “Something Terrible” happened.  We fell into the hands of thieves who stole everything.  Literally.  They cleaned us out completely.  They took every photograph, every lumpy clay ash-tray, every ball-point pen, every stick of furniture, beds, blankets, clothes.  Everything.  I’m sure they dumped most of it into a garbage can somewhere, but to us those things were priceless, irreplaceable treasures.  Gone.

If a thing like that were to happen today, I wonder if I would trust God in His providence.  At the time I had just started to seek Him, so I don’t remember thinking about Him at all or even praying.  What I do remember is the wrenching belief that my mother would finally give up under the weight of so much sadness.  But she didn’t snap that first day.  And she didn’t snap the next day, either.

Life went on.  It wasn’t pretty.  It surely wasn’t easy.  It just . . . continued.

We stood there on the other side of “Something Terrible” with our fingers in our ears waiting for the sky to come hammering down and finish us off.  But it didn’t.  We stepped away from the rubble of a shattered life, and kept walking . . . probably wondering what was for dinner.  It wasn’t the end of the world; in fact, it wasn’t even the worst thing that ever happened. 

We had survived a thing that most people never experience, and I think that surviving was what gave my mother some of her old strength back.  She wasn’t miraculously cured, but eventually the depression would go as far away as depression ever really goes.  Today she is married to a good man – as happy as she’s ever been, and we don’t talk about those days much.  But when we do talk about them, her eyes shine. 

Anyone who has experienced “Something Terrible” knows that there’s a sense of pride in being leveled by a punch that would level just about anyone.  We had been tested; stretched way past the limit, and we didn’t break.  We could take it.  Our value is tallied in our scars.

As for me, years later I found out that we can see the hand of God best in hindsight.  And even though He wasn’t officially invited, He was still in our lives back then.  In fact, it was His fist that leveled us, but I’m not bitter about that.  I realize now that we needed leveling.  We were blind and slipping down a hill toward a cliff, and God did just exactly what was necessary to save us. 

Am I saying that God caused “Something Terrible” to happen?  No.  We chose that road for ourselves, and I can see that now.  What I am saying is that in order for God to put us on a better road, He had to pulverize the one we were on.  God doesn’t cause calamity, but I believe He often allows “Something Terrible” to steer us toward something wonderful.  

It seems like we never know we’re falling until we hit the bottom, because that’s where we land in the hand of God.

 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. – Hebrews 12:11

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