Читать книгу Among the Myrtle Trees - Vanessa Crosson - Страница 7

Chapter 1

“You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?” Galatians 5:7

“Man strays away into misery and pain, because he loses the sense of value and runs after the temporary and the trivial. He ignores the voice of God which warns and guides him from within; and he pays the penalty for his transgression.” — Sri Sathya Sai Baba

My husband always says, “I’m built for the fight, not for the run.” For you to get as much amusement out of that as we do, I must share a few things with you. First of all, he’s a police officer and both of those actions happen to fall within his job description. Secondly, he has a body frame comparable to….well, let’s not play the celebrity look-alike contest. A couple of his nicknames from friends are “Tank” and “Stump.” That should help to give you a mental picture. And, lastly, have you ever seen muscle mass contend with speed? It’s quite amusing. If not, think Looney Tunes: Abominable Snowman vs. Bugs Bunny.

And a little human physiology lesson here: Our bodies prepare us so that we can fight or run….or both. By gathering a lot of energy quickly, we are able to cope with threats to survival. This is known as the “fight or flight” mechanism. Whether it’s a scary movie you have volunteered yourself to watch or something unplanned such as an accident or tragic news, your body responds to it. Stress hormones are released, the heart beats stronger and faster, breathing becomes more rapid, metabolism kicks up and the larger muscles receive more oxygenated blood. Your response can be automatic as well, just like a reflex reaction.

I’ll share an example from my youth. It’s a little embarrassing for me, but a good example none-the-less. I was sitting at a red light one night. Like a typical sixteen-year-old, I was counting how much time I had left until my curfew and I would turn into a pumpkin. I realized that I was behind one of my fellow classmates, but he didn’t recognize me. In fact, he didn’t even see me behind his pickup truck…..until he backed into my car. Surprised and scared, I backed my little VW up, went around him, and drove home. (Not one of my better moments!) When I got home, I confessed the incident to my parents and received a tongue-lashing from my dad. Then off we went to make things right from my wrong decision. Thankfully, because my classmate was an honest guy with good parents, the experience didn’t become any more painful, and it all worked out. “What was I thinking? I didn’t do anything wrong! Why did I run? I should have just stayed put and called the police.” Those were a few of my thoughts in the aftermath of my escape from the situation. It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback when you are able to stand back, look at the whole picture and think it out with no time constraints. But when it comes down to reacting quickly, we act as best as we know how using our experience and knowledge.

What can be said about our spiritual “fight or flight” response? In times when everything you know, trust and believe God for is tested – how do you react? For example, when you hit financial ruin – can you stand and believe that God works all things out for good for those who love Him? When you watch your sick child fight for his or her life – can you remain assured that God is in control? When you have been abused, neglected or abandoned – can you believe that God is a compassionate and loving God? Maybe your faith endures the fight for a certain amount of time, and then you find yourself running. Don’t worry, there’s a pretty good running club to join. Moses, one of the first members, ran out of guilt after killing an Egyptian. Fear kept him hidden for forty years. After experiencing victory against Jezebel, Elijah ran. In fear and exhaustion, he retreated thinking His luck with God was wearing out. Jonah, the president of our running club (mostly because of the whale incident), ran in disobedience to God. Because he felt the savage people of Nineveh were beyond redemption, he didn’t want to be God’s messenger of hope. And let’s not forget that the Israelites, in the days of Zechariah, had become a generation of runners. They had turned their backs, plugged their ears and hardened their hearts toward God.

There was a time when I grew faith and held onto it for the sake of my mother’s life. I can honestly say that it was the first incident in my sheltered life that required any faith at all and I felt sure that God would not disappoint my newfound confidence. When my mom was thirty-five, she had a mole removed in her doctor’s office. After a pathology report revealed it to be cancerous, she underwent surgery to ensure that all of the malignancy had been removed. Life picked up from there and moved on to what you would call normal for the next six years. Then, during my sophomore year of high school, she had some health issues and it was determined that the melanoma was back. It returned with a vengeance. I watched my mom’s health quickly deteriorate due to the rapidly growing cancer and the chemotherapy and radiation treatments she underwent to fight it.

At the age of forty-two, she dropped to a weight of eighty-five pounds, with visible tumors all over her body. Faith in God’s healing was the only thing that could save my mom from her failing body; nothing else was working. God was our only hope. I was with her on several occasions when she became unresponsive. The last time it happened was at the hospital. A nurse’s aide was also in the room, and she flipped the blue code switch. When they arrived, hospital staff members rushed me out so they could resuscitate my mom. I called several family members to come to the hospital and we paced outside the door praying, believing and trusting God for her healing. Nothing I heard and saw was positive, but I did not allow that to shake my faith. I prayed harder and cried out louder to God. After a very long attempt to revive her, the code was ended and she was pronounced dead. The staff members let us go in and visit her post-mortem.

My dad and I stood on opposite sides of my mom, who was stretched out flat on a pulled-apart hospital bed. Her room looked very different, as if she had been moved to a different one. I reached under the white sheet to hold her hand, but its cold temperature was too much of a reality to bear. I looked over and saw my dad crouched down over her face, uttering one last prayer, and felt an immediate shift in my heart. My faith turned to fear. My hope was crushed. And, my trust? Well, I had none – not even in God. The night I watched my mom die instead of seeing me off to my senior prom, was the night I laid my faith down, turned my back on God and ran. It’s ironic, really. My faith was introduced with my mom at my bedside and it came to a screeching halt with me at her hospital bedside.

Sometimes, running is the only thing we know how to do. Spiritual suffering and fear can snowball into a whole gamut of emotions. We start rationalizing everything and trying to understand the tragedy that surrounds us. “God must not love me; otherwise, He wouldn’t have allowed this to happen.” Better yet: “He must not exist.” Scared, angry and hurt, we run as fast as we can, abandoning the God we feel has abandoned us. Not many can relate to running – and those who can have a hard time admitting it or recognizing it….as I once did. It’s not something we tend to be proud of, not a trophy engraved with WINNER: FASTEST RUNNER FROM GOD to be displayed in our houses. So, as welcoming as those myrtle trees are, it would be an injustice to jump ahead without first pulling the bandages off the hurts and wounds we’ve covered up and hidden within our broken hearts in order to protect ourselves.

In other words, we must uncover our deepest grievances and disappointments, allowing God to work within us. It is then that we realize our quest to find fulfillment and healing from all other sources has failed, leaving us empty. He allowed the run to reveal that He is the only One that can restore our faith. He is the author and finisher of our faith. We must embrace the freedom by understanding that there is no tragedy and nothing to be ashamed of in running. The only tragedy would be not returning to THE ONLY ONE to whom we can and should run. It is in the run we are assured that nothing can separate us from God’s love. Upon discovering that in the run He builds us up for the fight, we realize the whole time we have been running….it’s been in the palm of His hand.

Prayer ~ God, I come to You as a runner, not knowing who I am anymore and not knowing You like I thought I once did. Are You there? I need to know that You are. I need to feel the warmth of You in my cold heart. I have run and hid and concealed my deepest hurts until I can do it no longer. I am tired – I need a strength that only You can give. I am lonely – I need the companionship that is only found in You. I have run for so long that it has become all I know. Begin now, God, a work of restoration in my heart. Show me how to walk with You. Pick me up, God, and carry me. I am tired of running. ~ Amen ~

Shades of Scripture

“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.” 1 Timothy 4:1

“I had planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock. How then did you turn against me into a corrupt, wild vine?” Jeremiah 2:21

“The Lord says: “What accusation did your ancestors bring against me? What made them turn away from me? They worshipped worthless idols and became worthless themselves.” Jeremiah 2:5

“Holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith” 1 Timothy 1:19

“But they quickly forgot what he had done and acted without waiting for his advice. They were filled with craving in the desert and put God to the test.” Psalm 106:13-14

“If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.” Isaiah 7:9