A Reflection On What It Is Like to Live in the Stream of God's Blessing (To Live as a Christian)

I don't count myself especially sentimental, and I don't like it when preachers or others let poignancy substitute for exegesis and application. Once in a while, though, you come across a story that hits you at your core. I love writing original content for this blog, but in doing a review I came across a particularly powerful story of gospel-driven character that I had to share with my readers: "Berry Mauve or Muted Wine" by T. Suzanne Eller.

Readers who take the five to ten minutes to read the whole thing will come away freshly encouraged to live self-sacrificially for those they love. As one reads, one marvels at the awesome power of the gospel, the message that has clearly shaped this husband's approach to his wife.

"He found me weeping bitterly in the hospital room.

“What’s wrong?” Richard asked, knowing that we both had reason to cry.

In the past forty-eight hours, I learned that I had a cancerous lump in my breast that had spread to my lymph nodes, and there was a possible spot on my brain. We were both thirty-two with three young children.

Richard pulled me tight and tried to comfort me. Our friends and family had been amazed at the peace that had overwhelmed us. Jesus was our Savior and comfort before I found out I had cancer, and he remained the same after my diagnosis. But it seemed to Richard that the terrifying reality of my situation had finally crashed in on me in the few moments he was out of the room.

As he held me tight, Richard tried to comfort me. “It’s all been too much, hasn’t it, Suz?” he said.

“That’s not it,” I cried and held up the hand mirror I had just found in the drawer. Richard looked puzzled.

“I didn’t know it would be like this,” I cried, as I stared in shock at my reflection in the mirror. I didn’t recognize myself. I was horribly swollen. After the surgery, I had groaned as I lay asleep and well-meaning friends had freely pushed the self-dispensing medication to ease what they thought was pain. Unfortunately I was allergic to morphine and had swelled like a sausage. Betadine from the surgery stained my neck, shoulder and chest and it was too soon for a bath. A tube hung out of my side draining the fluid from the surgical site. My left shoulder and chest were wrapped tightly in gauze where I had lost a portion of my breast. My long, curly hair was matted into one big wad. More than one hundred people had come to see me over the past forty-eight hours, and they had all seen this brown-and-white, swollen, makeup-less, matted-haired, gray-gowned woman who used to be me.

Where had I gone?

Richard laid me back on the pillow and left the room. Within moments he came back, his arms laden with small bottles of shampoo and conditioner that he confiscated from the cart in the hall. He pulled pillows out of the closet and dragged a chair over to the sink. Unraveling my IV, he tucked the long tube from my side in his shirt pocket. Then he reached down, picked me up and carried me - IV stand and all - over to the chair. He sat me down gently on his lap, cradled my head in his arms over the sink and began to run warm water through my hair. He poured the bottles over my hair, washing and conditioning my long curls. He wrapped my hair in a towel and carried me, the tube, and the IV stand back over to the bed. He did this so gently that not one stitch was disturbed.

Next came the mascara, blush, and lipstick…

My husband, who had never blow-dried his hair in his life, took out a blow-dryer and dried my hair, the whole while entertaining me as he pretended to give beauty tips. He then proceeded, based on the experience of watching me for the past twelve years, to fix my hair. I laughed as he bit his lip, more serious than any beauty-school student. He bathed my shoulder and neck with a warm washcloth, careful to not disturb the area around the surgery, and rubbed lotion into my skin.

Then he opened my makeup bag and began to apply makeup. I will never forget our laughter as he tried to apply my mascara and blush. I opened my eyes wide and held my breath as he brushed the mascara on my lashes with shaking hands. He rubbed my cheeks with tissue to blend in the blush. With the last touch, he held up two lipsticks.

”Which one? Berry mauve or muted wine?” he asked. He applied the lipstick like an artist painting on a canvas and then held the little mirror in front of me.

I was human again. A little swollen, but I smelled clean, my hair hung softly over my

shoulders and I recognized myself.

“What do you think?” he asked. I began to cry again, this time because I was grateful.

“No, baby. You’ll mess up my makeup job,” he said and I burst into laughter.

During that difficult time in our lives, I was given only a 40 percent chance of survival over five years. That was sixteen years ago. I made it through those years with laughter, God’s comfort and the help of my wonderful husband. We will celebrate our nineteenth anniversary this year, and our children are now in their teens. Richard understood what must have seemed like vanity and silliness in the midst of tragedy.

Everything I had ever taken for granted had been shaken in those hours - the fact that I would watch my children grow, my health, my future. With one small act of kindness, Richard gave me normalcy.

I will always see that moment as one of the most loving gestures of our marriage." (From Danny Akin's God on Sex, 111-14)

On today, my twenty-seventh birthday, I am so thankful for those close to me who have loved me in self-sacrificial, gospel-driven ways. For my parents and the happy, healthy childhood they gave me, the regular sacrifices and uninterrupted love, I give thanks; for my wife, whose beautiful face is exceeded only by her beautiful character, I give thanks; for my Lord and Savior, who has saved me and is in the process of transforming me from a selfish, narcissistic, vain, disobedient, jealous, hell-bound man to a vessel fitted to praise Him, I give thanks. Though I can see great work to be done in my heart, I hope to glorify Jesus Christ by a life marked over and over again by expressions of love like that presented above, acts that capture in snapshot form, in momentary display, the great reality of Christ's cruciform love.

When a Lawsuit's a Boy's Only Hope: Billy Wolfe, Bullying, and the Results of a Peer-Based Culture

It's not every day that you see a story about one boy being bullied without headlines accompanying headlines announcing a vicious death or a closeted homosexuality. Yesterday, though, the New York Times published just such a story. Dan Barry wrote the piece, entitled "A Boy the Bullies Love to Beat Up, Repeatedly", as a sober, quiet reflection on bullying. Though there is no grisly headline attached to the story (thankfully!), the piece is worth reading and thinking about.

Barry notes, succinctly, that fifteen-year-old Billy Wolfe of Fayetteville, Arkansas gets bullied on a regular basis. This is the kind of piece that Barry regularly writes for the NYT: pieces that go beyond headlines and burrow into the experiences of everyday people. A steady diet of such articles would grow tiresome, probably, but this piece raised a number of issues in my own mind about the link between schools and bullying. Billy is bullied on a regular basis by a number of boys who randomly approach him and punch him. There seems to be little rationale for this behavior, though one could guess that Billy is an outsider in his school--he might be bookish, or he might be slightly effeminate, or he might be a little socially awkward, or he just might not be strong, debonair, or athletic. As one who went to public school, I can reason that any of these factors could be directly contributing to Billy's situation. Kids--despite appearances to the contrary--can be relentlessly cruel. Public school can be quite difficult, then, because it often involves a large number of kids, some of whom are quite cruel, and little supervision by wise, discerning adults. For the child who is, for whatever reason, on the fringe, public (or private) school can represent a day-in, day-out exercise in sustained fear and unalleviated despair.

Perhaps many of us have forgotten this truth. We've long ago left behind school experiences that were difficult. Perhaps we are internally ashamed of the fact that we were once bullied. In fleeting moments of remembrance, we feel as though we caused such treatment. Maybe we remember how gawky we were, or how awkward, or how small, and we feel that we deserved to be bullied. Let's square with bullying, and with the pre-teen and teenage years: they can be quite hard. We're not giving into silly psychobabble or becoming weak if we look our past in the face and see the pain and hurt that lies there. I was always very short, and I remember being on picked on continually for it. I told my parents about some of it, and occasionally talked about it with friends, but there was alot of evil that I could do little about it and simply bore on my own. Some would say that this reality shaped my character and made me tougher, and that's probably true. But my experience in public school among a bunch of nasty kids also left me with some scars. I'm sure others experienced the same, though it's unlikely they'll talk much about it.

In reflecting on Billy Wolfe, I'm reminded of a few recent trips to local coffee shops. While reading in the afternoon, I've observed schoolchildren, fresh out of school for the day, play a number of pranks on one another. I've also seen packs of children hanging out with no adult supervision. In all of these instances, I've thought to myself that it is no good thing for packs of unsaved children to hang out together. There is little good that results from such grouping. Unsaved children, after all, do not tend to focus on goodness, truth, and beauty, especially in a Christian sense. No, they tend to focus on what is evil, outlawed, unkind, "cool", and funny, despite what others may think. The peer-based culture of American children that stems from the advent of public education in the twentieth century can hardly be viewed as a positive development for our society. I am not offering a direct application regarding the viability of public school for children of Christians here. Some kids thrive in such situations--they're well liked, they have a good witness, and all goes rather smoothly. With that said, though, it only makes sense that public or private school, unless closely monitored by wise, kind, just adults, threatens to present schoolchildren (particularly those who are not well-liked for whatever reason) with situations marked by cruelness and, well, evil. As Christians, we've got to think carefully before we plunge our kids into such worlds.

It is not easy to admit that one was bullied. It is also not easy to forget being bullied. I remember getting punched by bullies in school, and I remember one of my friends being shoved into a locker by a bully. He cut his hand so badly that he had to go to the emergency room. There was a great deal more that I can remember, too. I remember being taunted by older boys about a poor basketball game I played. Without any provocation, these boys repeatedly made fun of me for making a few turnovers. Twelve years later, I can easily recall my hot cheeks, my attempt not to cry in front of other boys, my inability to say anything meaningful to these boys.

These recollections show me that I, along with all Christian parents, need to think carefully about schooling. We cannot shield our children from the evil of this world; indeed, we must teach children to live in the midst of it, and beyond this, to be light in this place. With that said, though, we should remember children like Billy Wolfe. There were many children I can recall who were chewed up by public school and the cruel kids who populated it. We should remember, perhaps, our own histories, and run our minds over our own scars. As parents, we should be prepared to stand up with great force and courage for our children. I'm thankful that my own parents were always there for me. We've got to teach our children to defend themselves, even as we teach them to, when possible, suffer reproach for the gospel. Most of all, we need simply to think--to think about our children's souls and the way they will be shaped by the childhood years in which we shepherd them. Education is important, after all, but at what price does it come?