I am coming to realize that everything I have, even the things that I worked very hard for, were for the most part, given to me. In other words, any heights that I have reached - whether school, family, or occupational heights - I have reached them while standing on the shoulders of others.
When I was a child, I had a mother and father, both in the same home, who loved me. My mother taught me constantly to be kind, orderly, and affectionate to others. My father taught me how to shake a hand, how to hold a hammer correctly, how to do my work diligently, and that if I didn't hold onto the chain saw like a man, it would cut my face open!
More than loving me, they loved each other. I learned very early that it was a "no-no" to expect a different answer from mom than I received from dad. They were inseparable, and I knew it.
I hated Saturday mornings as a teen when my dad would wake me up to work outside. We lived on a large piece of property, so if we were not mowing grass for hours, we were building a fence, raking leaves or changing the oil in the vehicles. I now appreciate what my folks were doing.
A week after I received my license, I wrecked my truck. I was careless behind the wheel and earned a $950 body shop bill. My dad paid that for me so I could get my truck fixed - but, he then expected a hundred dollars a month for the next nine months.
I wasn't allowed to have a Nintendo. I found out this week that it was because I wouldn't ever study. They were right. I didn't like to study. But my parents cared about my grades and did what was necessary to ensure that I was learning. For punishment I had to read books.
I also remember learning a little more than school could teach. My sophomore year in high school I was performing poorly in science class. My dad told me that I was a man now and that I was responsible for my grades. I could fail out of high school but then I'd have to deal with those consequences.
I remember my freshman year in college when I overdrew my bank account almost $650! I didn't know, nor did I care, what those really thin pieces of mail from the bank were. I threw them away. My mom was so gracious and helped me out of that bind.
I don't have any college debt mainly due to the sacrifices that they, along with my grandmother, made. I was under the impression that I'd have to pay the money I borrowed from them back. But a year after college, they canceled my debt.
Now - take all of this, along with thousands of other graces I failed to mention, away.
There are millions in our society without caring parents, who live in impoverished neighborhoods and have no real security in life. No father. And because mom works so much, no mother either.
No love, kindness, orderliness, or affection felt or taught on a regular basis. Firm handshakes are replaced by many firm slaps. No knowledge of how to use a hammer, drill, or saw - and their hearts are cut wide open.
No foundation of inter-parental love. Mommy and daddy don't love, know, or care about one another any more. Their life is an accident. Everything is separable and unfaithful. Living with mom one day and mom's sister another. Sleeping on someone's bed one day, and on someone's couch another.
Who will take me? Where will I be tomorrow? What stranger can I expect to meet today? We thought these questions are only for the homeless adults who squandered their lives away; not, for children who are too young to pour milk into their own cereal bowl.
They have an x-box though; and they play it diligently all day, every day. Where else is the escape? Where else can they find the comfort of predictable circumstances?
They are failing math, science, and social studies. No one cares. The school system doesn't care, why should mom? They earn a diploma, but they can't read it.
Don't worry though, the fall won't be worse than their everyday experience. There's no motivation for anyone to move up. Nor is there consistent, intentional, truthful, and careful upward direction. But they are loved - and they have a check to prove it. There's no one to show them that money is rarely indicative of love.
But they have a cell phone.
And after a few months the bill is $650...like mine was when I was a junior in college. Unlike me, they have no one to guide and teach them responsibility. So, they toss the bill and the phone. Creditors call, but get no answer. Later in life, they call a bank for a car loan so they can get to their new job. And they get no answer.
But Pay Day Loans answers! And they charge 50% interest. Deal. Debt. Slavery.
When those shackles come off, both their pockets and their hearts are empty. Desperation sets in. Ideas for action flourish without any moral guidance whatsoever. So, instead of gripping the hammer or saw like our father taught us, he grabs the pistol like his friend taught him. Then, in just a short time, he feels the first intense manly embrace he has felt in a long while. Only it is a man in a uniform with a larger pistol than his own.
He is forced into orderliness by the handcuffs. He gets the first consistent bed in his life - in prison - along with a judgmental eye from those, like you and me, who reached heights he will never see. We read about him in the newspaper. And while we watch him on the side of the road in an orange jump suit, we arrogantly say, "I did it, why can't he?"Or, "Why can't he just get a job like the rest of us?" Or, "I can't believe how lazy his kind are!"
I have no other goal for this post other than to express my own growing awareness that things are not as clean as we'd like. They are more complicated than we think. They are not as easy as it was for us. And it's going to take more understanding than we presently have. Every good thing that we have, or have done, was purchased for us. It is only because of Christ that we can lay our judgments aside, in humble repentance, and direct those less fortunate than we to the One who took our judgment.
The truth is that we all need nothing less than redemption. The problem is that redemption is more bloody than we would like it to be.
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