Step two of the going-to-bed process requires me to set the alarm and check/respond to messages on my phone, including the online ones. Yes, I know the arguments against such screen time so close to trying to sleep. Whatever, it's not the point.
The online message-checking inevitably leads to article-reading. Tonight, for example, I browsed past about a dozen presidential race articles who's titles already had my blood pressure rising, to a local news story about an officer involved shooting. That link led to an article about the justice (read lack thereof) for a local child rapist convicted recently and now facing his so-called sentencing. I skipped the second article in my feed of the day about a set of parents who inflicted abuse on their toddler, breaking his ribs and one of his legs. They are finally having their day in court... Looking for something less icky, I tried swimming for safer bed-time-reading waters. I found a Jen Hatmaker link. She's usually funny and light. Nope, not this one, not funny or light. Reading Jen's article and the opinion articles that published it, brought me to a related Matt Walsh blog link. I read both with open-hearted and intellectual interest, trying to reconcile the seemingly opposed views from members of the same family. I recalled the wisdom of Jesus, who responded to these types of direct and complicated questions with broad answers, aimed at the heart of the questioner, who only meant to trap him legally or religiously in a response. Then, unfortunately, I read on. I nearly drowned in the waters of a billion shouting opinions and accusations, while I dodged missiles that were aimed by Christians, at Christians, in the comment sections of each link. And now I can't sleep. My heart hurts, well screams out in agony really.
Initially, as I shut everything off and closed my eyes, I visualized one of the noisy eight-kids-still-at-home, everyone feeling needy, days of my childhood. Often I was the lucky one who was assigned as the free babysitter. It didn't always go well, I'll admit.
QUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIETTTTTT!!!! I would scream at the end of the day, trying to be heard over the noise- the blaming and the defending, the crying, and the mocking. I just needed to hear nothingness; to feel some sense of calm and a presence of peace. Tonight I remembered what it meant to hear my father's cowboy-boot footsteps as he came up the walk at the end of one of those days. I had a healthy fear of what we'd all have to answer to once the door opened. I also felt a sense of relief because as the biggest sister, I always felt helpless to resolve all that need or the error that lay in front of me. Only now do I realize that never really was my job as the big sister babysitter anyway; it was Dad's.
Chances are on a chaotic day like that, we had all been naughty to varying degrees. Some of us were always antagonists, because personality dictated it. A few of us were stubborn enough to learn every, single, dang lesson the hard way. Now and then a few of us triiiiiiiied to be self disciplined, but lost our focus because of immaturity or distraction. We were hungry, tired, unheard, selfish, fearful; we had hurt feelings, we were annoyed and overwhelmed and needy.
My father usually got it all sorted out before dinner was served. Of course the method of correction was a varied as the crime; age mattered, cognitive ability mattered, heart attitude mattered, the number of infractions mattered...
So tonight I lay there trying to darken the blue-screen imprints behind my eyes and dull from my mind the sound of the shouting words I had read. I mentally embraced the oddly nostalgic flashbacks of those chaotic battles from my youth as well as the sometimes-bitter-sometimes-sweet fatherly parenting I was blessed to receive. I whispered for Jesus to come. I searched for thoughts of my Savior to help me drag my distracted mind back to a real hope and continued to whisper into the dark:
"SSSSSHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."
Can't you hear them? The "footsteps" of our Father as he walks up to the door on His return? Tonight I'm feeling that same big sister sense of dread as I view online proof that we have all been naughty since He left.
Some of us are antagonists and liars and pot stirrers because we like to see people squirm. Some of us just scream to be heard by someone, anyone. Some of us are arrogant and proud and always know the answer to every dang situation. Some of us know we are unseen and that we don't have answers or feel that we don't deserve them anyway. Some of us are quick to be defensive; some of us lead with offense. Some of us fear being forgotten or unloved. Some of us want to ignore the suffering of the others because it's just plain inconvenient. Some of us haven't gotten our way... or justice... we haven't gotten justice. Some of us love the law, but not the spirit of the law. We loathe the lawbreaker, altogether forgetting that we are one too.
In the mess, we've taken on a role we weren't assigned, to bring attention to a problem as we perceive it to be, with no understanding of the other viewpoints, the other hearts, the other abilities, the other ages, the other experiences, the other brokennesses. We have been desperate or immature. We have lacked self discipline and some of us just plain insist that we learn best in the deep pain of the mistakes.
I have gay friends, lesbian friends, straight friends, bi friends, friends who have had abortions, friends who have picketed abortions, police friends, minority friends, transgender friends, cross-dressing friends, city friends, country friends, addicted friends, recovering friends, theologically educated friends, theologically uneducated friends, friends who have been or are currently being abused, friends who have never been abused and couldn't possibly understand why someone would stay. I have divorced friends, widowed friends, married friends, forever single friends, incarcerated friends, correctional officer friends, parole officer friends, republican friends, democrat friends, pastor friends, atheist friends, angry friends, passive friends, rich friends, poor friends, gossipy friends and tight-lipped friends...
...and every single one of us has something to answer to for how we conducted ourselves while our Father was gone. How can Jesus be pleased with a single one of the agendas that our voices have been promoting, when we have promoted them with anger or when we have been quick to speak and slow to listen? What about when they have been detached from any personal relationship and have merely been used as weapons to be lobbed across world-wide-webbed-waters at faceless, fleshless enemies, who will only listen to respond, but not to hear? Did He personally and directly bring us trepidatiously under this spotlight for the promotion of those agendas through His truth-with-the-deepest-of-loves perspective? I'm guessing the majority of us would have to say our trigger fingers aren't that well guided most days. Lord help us, we're launching attacks out of our own injuries and that is a dangerous and misguided and unwinnable kind of war. Also, it occurs to me that it's not our job to resolve or correct all of that need or error that lies in front of us anyway; It's His.
All of us need some fatherly correction and all of us need Him to look us in the eye and tell us of His LOVE. We need to be reminded that "no" is sometimes protection and "don't" is sometimes "don't hurt yourself". We need Him to pick us up from our pit, wipe our tears and sort out our mess. We need our thirst and our hunger quenched. We need to be heard. We need to be humbled, or carried. We need help to put away the missiles and to clean out the shrapnel wounds and then for Him hold us while we cry. We need to rest in His embrace until we fully trust and respect this perfect God.
Oh, and a house divided against itself cannot stand. Jesus, we're going to need a lot of help working this out with each other too.
Mark 3:25
If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
2 Corinthians 104-5
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Five of the eight, before we got to a real kind of crazy!
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