The Joy of Grace

Perspective Jan 04

I often ponder what has happened in my life to make me think the way I think about things.  Very much the analyzer, I could reflect back on almost 22 years (I'm 27, so that means since I was 5 years old) of tiny and huge experiences that have molded me into the person I am today.  Like when I was 5, we moved to Memphis from Mississippi and I, quite frankly, freaked out.  My first grade teacher (Mrs. Thompson...she even named her firstborn after me~Laurin Elizabeth~but I'm not sure she spelled it with an "i") had to take me everywhere she went~to the bathroom, to run copies, to the office because I truly believed all chaos would render when she left the room, leaving me to fend for myself with no adult supervision which I, in my 6-year old mind, could not fathom doing.  Needless to say, I definitely had some issues, but those issues help me now to be an extremely compassionate person towards "scaredy-cat" children as I remember feeling so out of place as a skinny little first grader from Mississippi trying to make it at Mt. Pisgah Elementary School in Memphis, Tennessee.

On down the road...when I was in 7th grade, I remember when I hurt someone's feelings because I talked about her behind her back.  I have no idea what I said, not to mention that I distinctly  do remember this girl definitely being tough enough to beat me up, much less care what I said about her (if I wrote simply her first name, many of my readers would know her, so I will not...I still know her today and actually have a very good "hi, how are you?" relationship with her when I see her).  Anyways, I was so jarred by that experience I do not think I said a mean word about anyone until I at least got into my sophomore year of high school and I became sadly indifferent to many things for a couple of years.  That 7th grade experience still jars me as I remember how devastated I felt at hurting someone else.  I still need to re-learn that lesson daily.  "If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other" (Galatians 5:15)~a verse I cling to in that respect....the above experience I relish this day to help me remember how "biting and devouring" does "destroy".

My junior year of high school I totaled my car outside of the school, right in the middle of dismissal time.  Let me just tell you what I was on my way to do~buy a pair of jeans from this too expensive store.  I looked behind me to make sure my friend was following me so that she could confirm how great the jeans looked on me and ran right into the back of a very old Cadillac, totaling my small, maroon convertible.  If I ever need to be humbled today, (don't laugh) I hit my nose really hard because that reminds me of the horribly embarrassing feeling I experienced as my air bag shot out at me in the face...as I looked up amidst the smoke of the air bag to see the principal running towards me and the whole parking lot frozen, staring at this very "in the clouds" teenager who only cared about a pair of jeans.  Granted, I've come down from the clouds a lot since then, but I will forever remember that feeling of finally beginning to realize I was not all that...that I could be destroyed by Someone bigger than me if He so chose.  I mark that episode as the first I actually realized the Lord was seeking me out...to humble me unto Himself.

I'll fast forward a bit because this entry is getting long to my very horrible teaching experience. I had turned down other possibilities at smaller schools because I quite simply wanted to prove myself as a teacher in a big school, and of course that salary sounded so intriguing to me (again, don't laugh~it was and still is, in my humble opinion, a nice salary for a 2nd year teacher).  By week 2, I begun to say: "What have I gotten myself into?"  By month 2, I could barely walk into the zoo of a classroom I had with 25 special education students, no assistant, grades K-4th without crying.  And the tears just would not stop when I got home to my sweet husband.  Never ever in my memory had I fallen and not been able to get up within a day, the longest a week.  Yet I had fallen and I could not pick myself up mentally, emotionally, nor spiritually.  I did not feel like cooking, cleaning, talking on the phone, going out with friends....I was in despair and I believed the only way to get out was to quit the job.  Somehow in those tearful months of making it through that one semester, I knew the Lord was prompting me to get in His Word like I had never grasped it before...to hold onto Him with a bulldog grip and don't let go no matter what (I know-I just used two negatives...for all you perfectionists in the English language, I apologize, I'm a perfectionist also when it comes to grammar).  So, I started to write verses on notecards, but that seemed desperate to me...like I was  not a strong enough Christian to simply get through a day at a bad job. I did quit that job at the close of the semester (and, I must add, called the school on the several ways they were breaking the law).  The Lord did heal me in many ways over the following months, yet it would take more for me to realizehow to truly grasp His Word...to breath it, eat it, drink it.  However, I did learn that you are not a bad Christian (and, by the way, there is no such thing as a bad or good Christian...you are either a Christian or you are not a Christian) if you get down, even depressed.  I learned that we go though seasons, the good ones will end as well as the bad ones.  

And so the Lord brought another season to my life where I did learn to cling to His Word.  We decided to have a baby!  What could be more exciting?  What could be more the next step for us?  We had a house, a dog, and an SUV.  We needed a baby.  Honestly, up until we actually decided to try for a baby, I had not given it much thought.  Then a couple of friends got pregnant, and I begun to think "Yes, we need one of those too..."  That was in the spring.  By summer, no baby.  Finally!  Fall came and the results were in and there was a sweet life growing in me!  During those months of wanting a baby and the results not coming fast enough for me, the Lord drew me in to His Word.  It was wonderfully tough.  And, like so many times in my life, He had answered my prayer and I was getting what I wanted~ a baby.  (!!!) Oh, my friends, I had much, much, much to learn about prayer and about God.  About two weeks after we found out the great news, we found out that I had miscarried.  What!?!  After all that praying...all those claimed verses..all that anticipation.  My God would not do that, would He? May I simply quote Job~"The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised..." (2, verse 21).  

 Truly, during that season of my life, I clung to the Lord like I had never clung to Him.  I took those scripture notecards wherever I went~on walks, in the car, while getting ready and I was not afraid to shout out those verses with all that was within.  For I was fighting the fear of not becoming what I had secretly dreamed my life would be about for the rest of my days~a mom.  Although that seems a bit extreme I know (by the way, I'm an extremist, going from A to Z as Aaron likes to describe me), that is exactly what I felt and that scared me to no end.  One day I looked down at Charley (our Beagle), and I thought: "Lord, if that is the only being that I ever get to be a mom to, that is fine with me...she's a bit smelly and does not look a bit like me nor Aaron, but I love her and I am content in being her mom." Somehow I truly believe the Lord wanted me to come the place where I was fine with not ever becoming one of the very things I so desperately longed for.  I think it was that month we found out we were pregnant...with our sweet Savannah.

I'm not sure why I just wrote all of that.  Maybe it was because I have a dear friend who has been such a testimony to me in recent months about what it means to love and hold onto the Lord during a time when you'd much rather have your own way.  Maybe it was because as I looked over my entries, I needed to show my readers that life is more to me than parties and pictures and that the only way to truly enjoy those little things in life is to understand the BIG thing.  Namely, the Lord's purpose stands.  He works and wills according to His own goodness, and wonder of wonders~according to our eternal goodness, all by His unfathomable Love and Grace.  His faithfulness can be seen in more ways that I could recount in this entry.  From age to age He stands.  Time is in His hands.  How great is our God!