Using God

My few years of life on earth in a mostly homogenous small town gave me no context into which to place the event of my mother’s death when I was 11 years old.  We knew she had cancer, of course, but my father had dealt with the terminal status of it the way he thought best and probably how most men of his era would do.  He sheltered his children and kept it to himself, believing that to be the least painful way, I guess, for himself and us.   I was clueless until she was in a coma from which she didn’t awaken.  As far as I knew, mothers of 4 children didn’t die.  They just…..didn’t.

Living in the town where both my parents had grown up meant there was much support and love, and life carried on as normally as possible.  The school system my older siblings and I had been in from first grade and that my little brother was about to enter was a stabilizing factor.  So was the First United Methodist Church.  We were there every Sunday morning and evening, and I loved it.  I loved my Sunday School friends, the drink machine from which Daddy would sometimes give me a dime to buy a Dr. Pepper, running around outside with friends while the dads were talking (and smoking and rattling the change in their pockets) before going in to the 11:00 service, and the hymns.  

The loss in 1971 did not make me question God or be angry; those would have been reasonable responses. Instead somehow the result of her death was that I became more serious about God. Looking back, I’d say unnaturally so for the age that I was, and that seriousness and accompanying burden stayed with me throughout high school, college, starting work, and getting married. 

Certainly there was much good in my serious outlook, but there came an event that was the beginning of my realization of the accompanying unhealthy aspects.

In 1990, my second child was born.  Johnny was a hefty 9 ½ pounds and a healthy-looking boy.  We began to notice some issues with his breathing, however, and I went into emotional tailspin.  Doctors didn’t have a diagnosis, but also weren’t alarmed — he was sleeping well, eating normally, and gaining weight, But the anxiety I had was heavy, and there was a constant feeling of something I had to set right.  Obviously, there was nothing I could do, and I distinctly remember the moment when I was begging God to “fix it”, and it suddenly occurred to me that since I couldn’t control it, I was taking it a step up.  I was begging God to do my will.  I saw for that split second that my relationship with God was about getting things to go right in my life, about being in control.  I was using God.

I lost that insight in the course of things as family life went on.  I continued to ask God to keep or make things Right and felt at times that I had a pretty good handle on it. Life was working out about like I wanted.

But the lesson has come back in other ways, seeing it in myself and others.  “God is so good” we say when something has gone our way.  Is He not good when our hopes are smashed?  “God spared us from the tornado — it went right around us”.  But what of the 20 others in its path who lost their homes or even their lives?  Where was God for them?

I knew of a woman some years ago who would open her Bible to a random page and, with eyes closed, point to a verse, believing that was God’s word to her personally.  When she hit on one in the book of Joel about “God restoring the years the locust hath eaten away”, she believed it was His reassurance that a broken relationship would be healed.  So, she interpreted what God was supposedly saying to her to mean something she very much wanted.  What is that?  

(BTW, the supposed prophecy did not come true.)

I haven’t decided whether or not I regret the years of my premature somber ways in regard to faith.  There are times when I wish I’d played a bit, been more fun to be around, or just behaved more….typically.  However, there are regrets I don’t have from those years that many have to live with.  So what’s better?  I dunno.

I try to be understanding of that 5th grader who lost her mother, whose life changed drastically at that moment, though it continued on the outside as if it had not.  Life had been secure and sure and cozy, and now it wasn’t.  It was scary.  Things happen, and you can’t stop them.  People hurt, as our family did, and they keep hurting.  In that era, seeking counseling for yourself or your children to deal with grief wasn’t a thing, especially in a small town.  Getting close to God was a way for me to have some control, a way to pray against and prevent those things.  Or if not prevent them, at least to get help.  If I was good enough, close enough to Him, He’d listen, right?  If I kept my part of the bargain, living as He wanted, He would be nearby, and I would know His will and He’d care about mine.  Right?  

Funny thing is here I am now with fewer answers than ever.  The girl who was ready to tell people how to be saved and what God wanted from them and was sure she could make things go the right (i.e.my) way is letting it rest for a while.  I don’t know about The (or even “A”) Will of God, and yes, there are times I miss that feeling of knowing.  But that’s all it was — a feeling.  I guess what has come in its place, though, is the peace that I don’t have to know.  I’m okay with not having answers, and that in itself IS an answer.  

And if I could somehow reach back to 1971 and spend some time with 11-year old me, I’d hug her tightly and do my best to help her not to be afraid to be a child, to be unafraid to ride the waves of what life sends, and not have to have the answers.

I guess, in a way, that’s exactly what I am doing daily.