How I Got Here (part 3)
For this segment, I am going to post most of a chapter from my memoir, which was published in 2012. The memoir is titled Finding My Voice: A Journey into Faith.
A bit of background. This was in the fall of 2000. I was getting ready to go into Voluntary service at a children’s home. Dad (my adoptive dad) had had a accident while attempting to de limb a tree in our back yard.
Dad passed away in 2008. So, what is said below is said with the utmost respect, and only because it is part of the story of “how I got here”.
But now, I quote from the chapter of my memoir:
Once in a while I house-sat for my boss and his family when they were on vacation. It was the week of Thanksgiving. Mom had been “hammering” the idea that I needed to forgive my biological Mom. I was perfectly miserable. Wednesday evening after prayer meeting our chorus practiced for several upcoming Christmas appointments the next month.
Mom and Dad went home right after prayer meeting. Dad was still in a wheelchair as a result of a tree cutting mishap, earlier that fall, in our backyard that resulted in him breaking his left wrist and left ankle. Seeing Dad laid up in an easy chair and having to get
around in a wheelchair did not help my outlook on life at all. We had to heft his wheelchair up the church stairs every Sunday morning and evening. I knew too much about what
was going on the Saturday that Dad fell from the tree and… well…changed things forever.
I sensed that I was somehow blamed for the events that led up to the accident. Such as, the way Dad tied off the branch he attempted to cut. I instinctively wondered about what he was doing but also knew he would ignore any objections I would have raised.
I was the lone witness to what happened in those minutes.
I was actually in the middle of it all…standing on the bottom rung of the ladder. The butt end of the branch swung around and struck me in the chest before it swung up and landed with a crash on the house roof. I saw the branch coming toward me in slow motion, and felt myself flung backward to the ground by the force. I also felt “something” snap. This, at the exact moment that Dad was flung to the ground, less than ten feet away. The running chainsaw, with its 36 inch bar, still running, landed between us. But a somewhat irrational instinct bade me get to my feet and…I am not sure what I thought I would do
next. That was when I saw Dad on the ground. About that instant, Mom and my younger brother came running.
Most of the rest of that day passed in a blur of trying to clean up the branch mess and attempting to ignore the growing pain in my back and neck.
All this was whirling in my mind that Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving. I had a hard time seeing anything to be thankful for.
And I was getting ready to leave for FMH in January. We got through practice and my brother gave me a lift to the nursery….which was just up the road from home.
We pulled in and parked by the gate. My brother turned off the ignition and we sat there in the dark. We talked for a long time about a lot of things. I felt as if I was standing in front of a stone wall. God stood right there as well, saying “It’s up to you, buddy. If you refuse
to forgive your Mom, your walk with Me is over.”
What are you supposed to do when God says that to you?
What can you do….but give in?
Finally…after several hours of unendurable spiritual warfare, I was given the grace to utter the words. “Okay, God, I forgive my biological Mom.”
When I said those words, I felt like I had become a new person. I felt as if I had finally tasted what it was like to be born again. I felt like I had let go of everything that defined
my life up to that point. I had “let go of the rope” and had every sensation of free falling.
The next day was Thanksgiving.
