Convinced (on and of purpose)

So, it happened again last Sunday, just a little over a week ago. I returned to my hometown to share my story. I’ve found that each time I share is special to me in a different way. This time I was invited to speak at the church that I actually attended from the time I was born until I was around five years old, which was when my parents decided to move just outside of town (to the “country”) and build a house on family land. This church was also the church that my late father and his sister (my dear expert teacher aunt) grew up in; in fact, they both held many perfect attendance awards. My aunt said that she thought my dad had gone for 23 years straight without ever missing a single Sunday. Yes, it was quite sweet to return to the place where my dad’s faith in God was first formed. A woman who had grown up with my father was even in the audience as I spoke, and she bought one of my memoirs afterward; and when I had finished speaking and she had sat down beside me to ask me to sign the book for her, she hugged me and whispered in my ear to tell me what a great, great man my father had been.

While I did vaguely remember attending Louisburg Baptist Church, I didn’t at all remember the fact that my dad had grown up there. Yet, when I first sat down to write out what I was going to say at this church last Sunday evening, my mind kept going to my father. And so I wrote about my dad and his death and I even made the decision to read a most painful excerpt from my memoir during which I talked about Dad’s suicide. I had never thought to do this before when I was speaking. I would then show what I wrote to Dad’s sister, as I like to filter anything I plan to share with a group through multiple “safe” people. And it was then that my aunt told me how she and dad had spent much of their childhood walking together through downtown Louisburg just to get to this church. Yes, Dad was on my heart for good reason. I really wish I didn’t still waste time doubting God–he is so clearly in the details of my life. Yet, I return to the ditch of doubt, throw myself in it and then choose to hang out there a while as I look up toward Heaven and foolishly wonder why in the world I keep ending up so far from it.

I was indeed meant to bare my soul the way that I did, and I am meant to share my story the way that I’m doing it. And I don’t understand all the “why’s” (much less all the “how’s”). And I don’t have to understand. It has taken me a long time to realize this. I just have to live the life that I’ve been given–and it is a gift. My actions, my obedience, cannot be contingent upon my understanding. If they were, I’m afraid I’d be a statue of sorts, kind of like those creatures in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia who defied the white witch. They were frozen in time, though, because their allegiance was to the lion, Aslan, the real ruler of the world. The witch was white not because she represented purity or light but because she was cold to the core–ice all the way through. And the way the witch tricked Aslan’s children in Narnia was the same way God’s children are tricked today. We allow ourselves to be convinced that where we are now will never, ever change.

I believe that my dad was convinced of that when he decided to leave this world for another. And I find myself becoming convinced of this too whenever I find myself in a place of despair. The convincing, the “trickery,” actually precedes the despair, which makes sense because I believe that it is at the root of the despair. We must, must realize and then choose to embrace over and over again the reality that this world and all of the heartache in it truly isn’t the end of the story, the end of anyone’s story. “Real” life, though tasted occasionally in this fallen realm, has not yet begun for us. We have it to look forward to. That’s the promise God through his Christ, through the Christ, has made to those of us who accept it–who accept Jesus as the Christ.

Accepting him, though, does not exempt us from all of the trickery here, which was painfully obvious to me the end of this past week. All it took to draw me back to that doubting ditch was one bad day for a different someone very close to me. Yep, the people I love most are a weak spot for me, one of many weak spots but probably the easiest one. It would not be exaggerating at all to say that I found myself in a place of despair for almost half of the week-end–and all because someone whom I love dearly had a bad day. It actually sounds a little ridiculous as I’m writing this but one bad day is really all it took. That’s all it took to put me back in that place I never wanted to return to because I again allowed myself to be convinced, if only for one moment, that things were never, ever going to change for this dear soul whom I so cherish. That lie was dangled right in front of me, just like a baited hook in the face of a hungry, naive fish, and I bit. And boy, did it hurt! It doesn’t stop there though. Once things did turn around, not only turn around but start going along exceptionally well, another similar trick was employed. This time I allowed myself to be convinced that things can’t possibly go well for very long–the other proverbial shoe is bound to drop and drop hard. Just as we choose to believe the bad day will never end, we choose to believe that the good day cannot possibly last for long–the good is just not “real” enough.

God tells us that his mercies are new every morning, and I count on that. If I didn’t believe that to be true, I would be even more of a pitiful case than I am; and it would take even less than one bad day in the life of someone I adore to push me back into that despair ditch. There’s a great scene in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when Aslan, after meeting one-on-one with Edmund about his bad day, basically tells Edmund’s family that what is done is done and it should not be spoken of again. In other words, in God’s words, it is finished. I’ve never found it that easy to shake off the bad days, whether they are my own days or the days of others. But, I know I should shake them off each and every time they return because they really, really are not for forever. I wish my father could have found a way to shake them off. I think I’ll always wish this as long as I’m down here, and I think I’m supposed to. I believe God wishes the same thing, but he keeps on loving us no matter what. He’s awesome that way.

As I’ve rambled through my emotions, I realize that this last trip home was a most triumphant one, even though and maybe even because I relived some of the most painful memories of my middle-aged life. I’m seeing more and more that God has begun a sacred process, a process of turning pain into purpose. Yes, I actually spoke to a group of women called Women of Purpose. How fitting! Only God can do that. Only he can bring life from death. Only he can bring light from darkness. Only he can redeem every bad day, even ones so bad our minds can scarcely take them in. Only he can make this oh so hard life down here worth living. Only he is “real.” Only he is good. Only he has won once and for all. Yes, only God.