The reading today was from 1 Corinthians 12...one of the most meaningful passages in the Bible and the one passage that most defines and shapes my life. It all began when I was quite young, maybe six or seven.
My family had moved from our farm in Iowa to Arizona when I was just a baby. My Dad suffered from emphysema, and his doctors told him that if he moved away from the climate in Iowa to a warmer, drier climate in Arizona, it might prolong his life. He was a young man to be battling such a disease, and I'm sure he wished to spend as much time as possible with my Mom and us kids. I remember one summer my Mom, Mark and I drove across country to Iowa with a lady named Gertie States. I remember the back seat of Gertie's car was covered with plastic. I also remember hearing the word "turnpike" for the first time. Besides being car sick, I don't remember much else about the trip, and I don't know why Dad and the others didn't go to Iowa as well.
We arrived at Grandma's house. I loved visiting Grandma. She had a little parakeet named Chirpy. Chirpy knew how to talk. He said, "Polly, wanna cracker?". Grandma had really neat toys like the marble game, and Kitty in a Barrel. High atop Grandma's hutch was a small white candy dish filled with candy corn, but she called it corn candy. Grandma's kitchen always smelled clean and fresh, and it was always full of aunties and uncles and cousins and people who loved me. Grandma had a small black and white TV in the living room, and she would watch shows like "Flipper" and "The Real McCoys" with me. Grandma had beautiful white (not grey) hair, and graceful, beautiful hands and fingers. Her fingers were crooked at the knuckles. She was an excellent seamstress, and when my stuffed animals would tear, she would sew them back together and tell me she was performing an operation. She called me her "little leafy". I loved Grandma and I loved Grandma's house.
Grandma's house wasn't at all like the house I lived in in Arizona. Grandma's house had many steps--steps leading to the back door, and steps leading to the front door. Everyone in Iowa seemed to have steps, and I noticed this because I couldn't climb steps without lots of help from railings and other people.
I loved my other Grandma too. She lived in an Iowa house too. She was a more serious kind of Grandma. When she sat down in a chair, she always had to have her feet up on a hassock or stool. I noticed this, but I just thought that perhaps all old people were like that. I liked to look at the trinkets setting on her coffee table, and the things hanging on the walls. There were plaques and photos, and crocheted doilies. Her kitchen smelled good too, like coffee and cinnamon. This Grandma had candy too, but I didn't like her candy at all. She gave us pieces of Dutch anise candy which tasted like very strong black licorice, and she offered circus peanuts for which I had no particular love. This Grandma's hair was grey, and she had a low, musical voice and a calm, peaceful way about her. She loved to talk about church things, and I would listen to her, my Mom and my aunties chatter while I played..
It was on this trip to Iowa that I first heard God's voice, but I wouldn't know that I had heard God's voice until many years later. I was sitting on the steps outside of Grandma's house looking at the street, the many green trees, and the lush grass. Everything looked so different in Iowa. Mom had told me that I could go sit on the steps, but not to play on them because I might get hurt. The adults were all in the house drinking coffee and talking, and I was sitting on the top step. This moment was the first time that I remember hurting over being crippled. I desperately wanted to run up and down the stairs, or take two steps at a time as I'd seen my brother Mark do. I wanted my braces to fall off my legs and I wanted to skip down the steps and run down the street. I wanted to run, and feel the wind blowing through my hair. I wanted to be like other kids.
I knew about God, and I knew that if God were real, he could heal. I also had heard the stories about Jesus healing people. I had even heard my Sunday School teacher talk about a man who had "the palsy" being healed by Jesus. So I prayed. I prayed with all my heart. "Dear God: Let me walk. Let me be normal. Heal me. I want to walk up and down these steps." I stood up. I believed. I shook a little standing there. I was afraid. Then I took a step...and crumpled to the ground. I ignored the stab of pain, got up, turned around and tried to walk UP the same step I had just fallen down. Stepping up was easier, but I fell again. I was bruised and even bleeding a little. I felt something die inside. I crawled to the top step and sat down there again. I brushed away my tears. I didn't want Mom or Grandma to see me cry.
I immediately felt disappointment and even anger with God. Maybe he wasn't really real. Maybe he was real, but he wasn't listening to me. Maybe he didn't heal at all. Maybe those were just stories. I cried some more. Then a thought burst into my little girl mind out of nowhere. It was a big thought. "My grace is sufficient for thee." I didn't even know what those words meant and I didn't know where I had heard them spoken before. Grace? Sufficient? I cried again, angry now because those steps were an insurmountable obstacle to me, a cage holding me captive in a place I didn't want to be. I knew that I'd always be different and that nothing would ever come naturally or easily to me. In a moment I knew that I'd always have to work hard to achieve what others didn't even have to think about. My heart broke that day and I decided that God wasn't my friend. After all, if he were real, and if he wanted to be my friend he should have healed me.
Mom called me inside and asked me what had happened. I told her that I had fallen on the steps. She washed my wounds and told me that I shouldn't be playing on the steps like that. It was then that I asked Mom, "What is sufficient?" "Sufficient means enough. It means you have just what you need. You have enough." She then pointed at one of the plaques hanging on Grandma's wall and read the words inscribed on it aloud. "My grace is sufficient for thee." That means, she said, that God's grace is enough for you. You don't need anything else."
I thought about that as I grew up. I learned what grace was, at least what preachers say that grace is. I learned that grace is undeserved favor and blessing. And I learned what the word "sufficient" meant, but it was one of those words that I didn't hear outside of reading that passage in the Bible. I remembered the verse often, but I didn't understand. You see, I wanted to be healed. That would be enough. How would this thing called God's grace ever even begin to make up for what I didn't have and for what I had lost?
Today I read those beautiful words yet again. For a brief moment I again felt the pain and the disappointment. I am older now but I still want the same thing I wanted as a little girl sitting on Grandma's stairs. I still don't know why God hasn't healed me. The answer never came to me as I got older. But today I do know that way back then, on the steps outside Grandma's house God told me, Ruth, that his grace, his kindness, his favor was enough for me to face all my falls and all my fears. His grace is enough to bring me through pain, anger, disappointment and loneliness. And the more I fall, the more I am weak, the greater he can show himself to be.
I still beg God to heal me. I still stand shakily at the top step and imagine what it would feel like to have him touch me and feel strength surge through my body. But now I stand at the top step leaning on a beautiful dog named Ross. My hair looks grey just like Grandma's did. I imagine the way I would dance, and the stories I would tell if God healed me. I still long to skip down the steps two at a time. I'd love to run and dance. I'd love to cuddle my grand babies someday and walk the floor with them. I'd love to run a mile with Ross by my side. I'd love to walk with a normal gait, and to be freed of anxiety about getting around. I can't imagine anything better than the feeling of my brace falling off my leg and natural strength replacing it. I am disappointed that I am not healed, and I wish there wasn't pain.
I choose to believe though, that God heard my every prayer for healing, that he understood then, that he cares now, and that he is good. His grace IS enough even if I am never healed. After all, he told me so himself, long before I even knew the meaning of the words or who it was that was speaking to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment