Run Away Home

It was chilly.  Regardless, I clutched tightly to my clothes and plunged into the night.  On tiptoe I had come through the back of the house and slipped into darkness.  My heart raced with disobedience as I shut the door behind and turned to face my rebellion. 

In the yard, eyes not yet adjusted to the inky black, I hit hard the dog jumping at me.  “Tracey, get DOWN!”  I whisper-screeched, but sucked in my breath when I realized the animal I struck was too big to be my own.  I ran down the alley with all my might.   I was surprised it didn’t chase; it must have been stunned by my boldness.  So was I.

Stones hurt my bare feet, so I kept to the grass at the side.  I ran hard, but slowed when the air in my lungs was too hot to exhale without burning my throat.  Soon I approached the streetlight and had to pass by the house with the biggest dog in the neighborhood.  I hoped it wasn’t out at night.

Sneaking across, I panicked, hearing a stranger’s voice: “Allie, is that you?  What are you doing out so late?”  Naked feet slapped madly the asphalt and I disappeared down the street.

I rounded one corner, then another, and looking back, saw a police car slowly rolling, peering, coming close.  I hid in bushes, prickly and stabbing, willing my breath to still.  I could barely make out the radio through its open windows, “Thought I saw something; it’s nothing,” and in what felt like thirty minutes, they drove on.

I kept walking, walking, past the brick schoolhouse, down the hill, on and on into the night.  I came to the final corner and was at long last only a few houses from my goal: Grandma and Grandpa’s place.  Mommy and Daddy had told me I wasn’t allowed to stay the night and I had been heartbroken.  In my defiance, I had packed up a change of clothes and decided I was going to march across the town, myself, sleep outside, then sneak in their house by morning and they would wake up and find me there.  I was 5-and-a-half years old.

I reached my goal, but was discovered making noise in the garage.  (I got too cold trying to sleep in the driveway.)  Alarmed at first, Grandpa was amused and I think secretly impressed.  He phoned and asked where Marilyn was.  They answered I was asleep in bed.  Grandpa said, “Go check.”  Ha!

Such was the love I had for my grandparents!  Grandpa teaching me checkers, singing with me Gaither songs on his 8-track, Grandma making “Tang-Tea” and listening to Paul Harvey on the radio.  It was familiar and safe and I wanted nothing more than to be with them.

Grandpa went to heaven six months ago and Grandma followed this week.  They’ve gone home.  They join Mom and Dad who have been keeping their places warm for many years.  And how I ache to join in their welcome celebration this night!

But I have a long journey, yet ahead.  I have dangers to fight and enemies to avoid, roads to choose and hills to descend.  I hurt because I miss them.  I want to be with them.  I hunger to belong and be that accepted, again.

Yet, I feel God’s encouragement and love.  So while weary, I plod along, one foot in front of the other, slowed by grief but hopeful that I will see them all again, one day, after this great adventure.

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Pondering Points 

1 Thess 4:13-14

13 Brothers and sisters, we want you to know about people who have died so that you won’t mourn like others who don’t have any hope. 14 Since we believe that Jesus died and rose, so we also believe that God will bring with him those who have died in Jesus.

John 14:1-3

1Do not be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me. 2 My Father’s house has room to spare. If that weren’t the case, would I have told you that I’m going to prepare a place for you? 3 When I go to prepare a place for you, I will return and take you to be with me so that where I am you will be too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vmcEQz1ny4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vmcEQz1ny4

Crucifixion, Smooch-a-fixion

The whole service was different.  It was a reflective time, a worship experience for which many had rehearsed; hours had been spent in preparation.  Into the silence at the start, I played my wistful prelude, plunging through phrases, swelling and pulling back, commanding the keys to sing, to whisper, to shout!, to hide.  The choir sang of Jesus on a journey, purposefully inching toward the cross.  The bells played with stunning melancholy.  Captivating.

The sermon was given and communion was solemn.  We all were focused on the task set before Jesus.  Our last song was sung in minor key and the final passages of scripture droned on – verses we didn’t want to hear, but needed.  As they were read, two very quietly took from the altar the communion dishes, the Bible, the candles, the cloth.  Every decoration was symbolically stripped.  My heart was wrenched, my soul reminding me, “Jesus was innocent!  Pure!  But He did this for ME.  I needed His help and He did this for ME.”

The verses complete, all lights came down in the stillness.  Solely remaining was a plain wooden cross, barely seen.  A crown made with 2-inch spiked thorns had been twisted together; one very much like that which was pounded into Jesus’ head by the soldiers that mocked Him.  I could scarcely stand to look at it, knowing what it stood for. 

I watched as the acolyte brought it forward to place on the cross…and was angry!  At the Jews who used political unfairness to crucify my Lord?  Well, yes… and NO!  This white-robed teenage girl was carrying the crown and had a look of disgust on her face like, “I cannot believe I have to do this – this is SO STUPID!” 

Her whole body language made it obvious that she had been forced into this job, threatened with phone confiscation.  She virtually tossed it up to the nail with a loud, non-verbal, “What-EV-er!”

I’m telling you, I wanted to go over and take her by the shoulders and shake her!  “Don’t you realize what you’re doing??  You are symbolizing a man being tortured to death!  For YOU!  He didn’t deserve it!  But he loves you and volunteered to be beaten, bleed and suffocate to death for YOU!  Were you not listening this entire service?!”

If she had thrown it up there in anger, I would have understood it.  If she had cried while hanging it, I would have felt the same.  But apathetic??  “It’s Jesus, who cares?  Crucifixion-Smooch-a-fixion.  I heard it all last year."  WHAT??

Have we heard the story so many times it doesn’t affect us any more?  Maybe we’re so busy “being good” that it almost doesn’t matter?  I had gone to church for decades and loved it.  Loved the tradition, loved the history, loved the motions.  But it wasn’t until I screwed up my life royally that I realized, “You know what?  I’m not some great person, after all.  I am SUNK!  And I can’t figure my way out of this by myself!  I am One. Hot. MESS!”

Only then did I become grateful to the One whose death is remembered.  Because I realized I’m really not so terrific.  I have skeletons in the closet that I’d rather keep hidden.  And to be honest, don’t we all?  But it’s not until we are humble – or become humbled – that we realize how good He is and how far we are from the mark.  Only then do we appreciate the price of His mercy, His grace, this sacrifice. 

Praise Him!

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Pondering Points
Revelation 3:14b-16  ^14b “‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation. ¹⁵ “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! ¹⁶ So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.

Romans 5:6-8 ⁶For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.⁷For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.⁸But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.