There were two major events I remember — Okay, now five — from my brief life of walking with Christ.
No, that wasn’t a pronouncement that I’ve done the trendy thing and gone atheist. I know that our Father could handle it, His Son Jesus, too … but I think turning my back on Him would be like slapping Him in the face, spitting on His face, slapping it again and then spray-painting “F – U …” (you know the rest) across His now teary face. I can’t imagine walking away from Him.
But walk away is what I did as an 11-year-old back in 1974. The year Amy Grant sang about a couple decades ago (I think it was on the Lead Me On album). That was the year I came to Jesus, fell in love with Him. Two of my memories were leading two of my best friends to Him and His forgiveness. That was an honor and so cool. I was living for Jesus, fulfilled in the depth of my soul. I was coming to understand worship and I was reading the Word. I was growing. But for one reason or another (perhaps it was these three moments combined) I slowly but surely walked away from Him. I’m guessing that this “walk” was a good six months. Maybe a little longer. Maybe closer to nine. I don’t recall. I am pretty sure I got saved in the winter of ’74 and was kinda turned from Him by the spring of my sixth grade year in ’75.
The first two events were horrible. They stabbed my heart with pain so deep that I ached inside. They both involved trying to tell people about Jesus and they both involved making an older beloved woman cry with anxiety over the events. I’ve blogged about both, so I won’t get into those. One was my Grandma Daisy, who I loved very much. I approached her in the kitchen of her home about “Why won’t Grandpa Doc talk with me about Jesus?” He had blown me off on the front porch. The other was my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Tesdall, who was crying over my “crossing the line of the separation of church and state” by placing religious tracts inside each student’s folder/envelope on the outside of our “coat closets.” Those events hurt.
The third event I hadn’t thought about for a long time. I remembered it during church this past Sunday. I was alone and on my row were two little girls that I passed the cracker and then grape juice trays to. Their mom leaned over to help make sure they didn’t spill the crackers. I held the juice tray and let their mom pick the two little plastic cups for them. She smiled a “thank you” that was easy to lipread. I thought about them possibly spilling that whole tray of several cups of grape juice, so I made sure to serve them instead of pass the tray to them.
It brought back a time of communion in the church pews. This was sometime during that mid-’70s era I talked about. I was sitting with my parents and a sweet high school girl I’ll call Laura E. As an 11-year old I had a crush on her. She was beautiful. Kind of a sandy blonde with hair down to her shoulders. She always dressed nice and was especially friendly towards me. I knew inside that we’d never amount to anything with our age differences, but for some reason I still had a childhood crush on her. When passing the grape juice to her that day, I somehow spilled it on her nice dress. I guess she really liked that dress or maybe she was having a rough day (I couldn’t tell), but she kind of exploded. I can’t remember if she called me a jerk or anything, but her reaction was like that. Kind of a “How could you do that!” sort of outrage.
Crushed my little heart. It was an accident. Not sure how the hand-off failed to be safe, but that grape juice got on her dress and grape juice is probably a stain that’s a pain to get out. That rhyme/pun was not really intended (too much). Looking back, I can see how a little 11-year-old could be seen as an annoyance. Little did she know that I was about as in love as an 11-year-old could be. To me, it was a full-on rejection that cut to the core.
For a few sentences, I’m going to vent and blame her for some grief. Forgive me, Laura. I don’t really stand by these accusations.
Now, that’s three major cases of rejection. My tender little heart got hurt by those things. One of the things that jumps out at me is the ramifications of our actions. The object of a crush isn’t responsible for the feelings of the crusher. They can’t help it. Sometimes the situation can be so awkward that all the measure of tact and grace in the world won’t help shoo the person away (and inviting them in for companionship is not healthy or even safe), but those are extremes. For a situation like we might most encounter, allowing our natural reactions to take over and blind us to the feelings of others can be mean, harmful and cruel. If it were me and I let my frustration of having something spilled on me erupt in verbal, facial or expressive disgust, I’d regret that.
I’m at a loss here and conflicted. I cannot condemn someone else for a fairly innocent action/reaction. I do, however, want to present my side of the story. It sobers me up and makes me realize that my lack of courteous sensitivity can lead to unnecessarily hurting someone else. I’m making a mountain out of a mole hill here, for sure. This was just a small life lesson for me, but at the time, boy, did that lesson sting. We’re all going to experience times where someone treats us harshly and/or we find out that someone we thought was a friend wasn’t or even a stranger can put us down verbally (especially if we live in New York and we cut someone off in traffic, ha!). It’s good to know that our identity and value is wrapped up in or based upon that other person’s viewpoint. Living with that kind of instability would be a drag.
Impressionable moment #17 blog over.
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