9/7/2018 0 Comments ObstinanceMy husband’s uncle was profoundly deaf. Growing up hearing impaired in 1940s Oklahoma meant boarding school several counties over with other children who couldn’t hear. The Oklahoma School for the Deaf was where he met his wife and the mother of his children. I never met my husband’s grandmother, but from what I have learned, she was a remarkable woman. She knew that her grandchildren would need to grow up with people who could speak as well as people who could sign so she invited her son and his wife to build a home on the family farm. They accepted and the cousins who grew up on the farm became completely fluent in ASL and spoken English. And they had the fortune of living close to loving grandparents who helped raise them and care for them. One of the stories that his family likes to tell about this arrangement is about the oldest of the cousin’s ability to shut out her parents when they made her angry. She would simply turn her back on her mom or dad, cross her arms across her chest in childlike defiance, and close her eyes to their angry fingers. When your attempting to lecture your child about what they have done wrong and the only way to communicate is with your hands, its hard to get your point across when they won’t look at you. This visualization of Dan’s cousin always makes me giggle. She is a strong-willed woman who makes her presence known every where she goes as an adult, I imagine she was the same way as a child. The obstinate child ignoring her parents isn’t hard to see in the bold yet sweet adult she has become. When I picture a pouty, recalcitrant child closing her eyes to the authority figure behind her, I sometimes see myself in my walk with God. How many times have I simply ignored or blatantly disregarded what he is trying to say to me? And then in the moment when I finally realize I need him, instead of turning around and meeting him face to face, I run off searching for Him. People always talk about “finding” God, the thing is, HE’S NOT LOST! We are. All we have to do is open our eyes and see that He has been with us the whole time. We shut out the signs that he is giving us and turn our backs to Him and then wonder why things are so screwed up. God pursues us with a reckless abandon while we run full-speed of the next cliff we see. When we shatter on the rocks below, we cry out that He has abandoned us only to open our eyes and see Him standing there with a shovel and pail ready to scoop us up carry us home and put us back together again. Good thing this isn’t a Humpty Dumpty analogy! Every time I step off a cliff, I foolishly believe that it will be last the time I ever fall into rebellion, and then I look around and see the same sins at the bottom of the pit I’m swan diving into and wonder how I got off path this time. It’s simple really, I turned my back on the one I should be looking to, I started falling instead of following. I recently had another brush with the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, I’ve been a bit bruised lately, but not completely broken like the times past. Maybe that is what the Christian walk is all about, smaller slips and a stubbed toe here and there replace the great plunges into the abyss that I once used to take. As the road gets steeper and harder to climb, my reliance on Him grows. The pouty child with her arms crossed and her eyes closed against instruction still seeks her own way at times but feeding on the spiritual food that God given all of us is forcing her to grow up, finally. I can’t ignore the presence that is always with me anymore. He has given me a task to perform and a job to do in this world, but I must open my eyes and hold on to Him if I am going to make the journey. Childish rebellion is no longer an option, and it was foolish to think that it ever really was.
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AuthorI am a Christian, a wife, a mom, and a part-time basket case who wants to be a full time writer.
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