HEROES

In Chapter Eight of my book A Portrait of Grief, I speak of the giant of fear. Grief feels a lot like fear. This chapter begins with a story of my childhood fear of the dark.

Growing up, I was terribly afraid of the dark.

My brother and I shared a bedroom and bed, at least until he started middle school when my daddy finished out the attic to make him an upstairs bedroom.

Even on the hottest of Texas nights with no air-conditioning and only an attic fan for survival, I loaded the covers over myself for protection.  And I had to touch my brother to reassure myself he was there.  He would have none of it. Every night we would go through the “don’t touch me” ritual.  I would reach a finger or toe over to touch him for safety, hoping he wouldn’t notice.  “Don’t touch me!” rang out over and over in our room throughout our childhood.  Sometimes I accomplished my goal, waiting until he fell asleep before the touch or settling for a touch on the fabric of his pajama top.

“What are you so afraid of?” my brother would demand.

“I don’t know,” I would answer.

“Don’t be afraid!” he commanded me.

“Okay,” I whimpered, my mind filled with images of the alligators hiding beneath my bed.  

Fast forward to last night…  my husband was on a golf trip with some of his friends and in the Texas hill country.  Since I have begun working on a discussion guide to accompany my book, I opted not to go, but to remain at home to get some work done.

After preparing for bed, pulling down the duvet and arranging the pillows, I went back into the main part of the house to read a while longer.   

Ready to retire, I walked barefoot back toward my bedroom and paused when I noticed a long shadow in the dark hallway, stretching from one wall to the other.  Leaning down to examine the shadow, it lifted its snake head to examine me.

Screaming, I ran backwards and then around in circles searching for my phone only to remember that it was trapped beyond the snake in my bedroom, as was my robe.

Running to my neighbor’s house, I thanked the Lord that the snake was visible, and I didn’t step on him. Looking down, I thanked Him that I hadn’t worn a sheer nightgown, but had chosen a cotton one, as I knocked on my neighbor’s door.

Did you know that Animal Control goes home at 5? They have a recorder for messages.

  We then called 911 and were told that Animal Control goes off duty at 5.  

“I will call someone back out, but only if you have eyes on the snake. Do you have eyes on the snake?

“NO!” we all shouted at the phone.

“I’m allowed to call them back out to capture, but not to search. Call me back when you do have eyes on the snake.”

Grabbing a shovel and a hoe, my neighbor, his wife, and I went back to my house, all the while praying the serpent had not moved.

Of course, he was nowhere to be seen.  

“I’m going to need to move out,” was my anguished thought.

As we searched, tucking the dust ruffle up under the mattress and lifting some pillows, he poked his head out from under my bed and then back under.  We all screamed and called 911. 

 “Stay there and be sure he doesn’t move.  I’ll send someone.”

About forty minutes later, an Animal Control Officer arrived with her snake hook.  Calmly, she began pulling things from beneath my bed, unwrapping my silver tea pots and looking inside each one. 

“They can get really small when they want to.”

 She was opening and peering into each closed box, examining the insides of rolls of wrapping paper. 

“If you see him, don’t scream or I’ll hit my head on the bed,” she advised as she shimmied halfway beneath the bed.

“There you are,” she laughed softly and began to shimmy out, using the hook to pull the snake toward her.  

Extending her hand, she sustained a bite, but somehow was able to grab him by the neck.  

“He’s not poisonous.”

“Thank God! We all shouted.”

As I washed the blood from her hand, she said she was on her way back home to finish cooking dinner--just a normal night for my hero.

Heroes come in all sizes and shapes, all genders.  Last night my hero wore a black uniform, carried a shiny hook and was hungry.  She asked me not to show her face when I snapped the photo, so you won’t recognize her, unless of course, you see a woman with wounds on her right hand.

It makes me think of another hero.  

In Luke 24:13-35, we read the story.

There were two men going that very day to a village named Emmaus.  They were talking together about all that had taken place.  Jesus himself approached them and began to walk with them.  They did not recognize him.  

“What are these words you are exchanging with one another as you are walking?”

They were shocked that he did not know of the crucifixion of Jesus. 

“We had hoped that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.  Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened.”

The men then confessed their confusion since women had gone to the tomb and saw a vision of angels who said his body was gone and that he was alive.

And He said to them, “Oh foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!

Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?”

Then beginning with Moses, He explained to them everything concerning Himself in the scriptures.

When they approached the village where they were going, they urged Him to stay with him.  So, He did.

“And it came about that when He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them.  And their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight.”

I have always wondered when He broke the bread, was it His wounds that they saw on his hands that opened their eyes?

Thornton Wilder wrote lots of short plays.  One that I really love is titled, The Angel That Troubled the Waters.  It is based on the tradition of healings that took place at the pool of Bethesda, written about by John in Chapter 5.  Supposedly there was an angel who would pass from time to time, stir up the water in the pool, and the first person into the pool after the water was stirred would be healed.

Wilder pictures the pool surrounded by the lame and diseased –everyone waiting for a miracle.  

A newcomer comes.  He is a physician.  He has no obvious wound of his own, but somehow, he is wounded and praying for the angel to release him from his pain.  Wilder doesn’t say this, but I imagine that perhaps he has suffered a great loss and the pain of grief is so excruciating that he feels he cannot go on. 

The angel does come, and reveals himself, but only to the physician.

“Draw back, Physician, this moment is not for you,” the angel says.

The man can’t bear the thought of being so close to his healing and it being withheld from him.

The angel stands a moment in silence, picks his words carefully...

“Without your wound where would your power be?” he asks. 

“It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men.  The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living.  In Love’s service, only the wounded soldiers can serve.” 

Why are many of us destined to live on, brokenhearted, with invisible wounds?  I really don’t know, but if, in “Love’s service, only the wounded soldiers can serve,” then some of us are uniquely prepared to serve and to comfort others –as the Lord Himself has comforted us. 

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

After experiencing grief and sorrow, after walking through “the valley of the shadow of death,” find those who are journeying behind you.  Tell them how God got you through.  Show them your scars.