Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal
There are few times a parent hurts more than when his/her child is sick or injured and he/she can do nothing to ease the pain or suffering. The sense of helplessness that overcomes a parent can be excruciating at times. I have experienced this with my sons, and I know many of you have as well.
Wednesday Were Pretty Normal, a new book by Michael Kelley chronicles the story of his two-year old son, Joshua, and his battle with leukemia. Michael is brutally honest about the pain and doubt that overwhelmed him while he watched his son endure this trial. I want to share a section with you today which stood out to me when I read it. It's a great reminder of our value in Christ and Christ alone.
Even on the best days, I walked around with a sense of brokenness. It's like I was shattered into pieces during Joshua's treatment, and now I'm glued back together, but I can't escape the rough edges. The ill-fitting pieces. I just feel…broken. I looked for the future and felt aimless and directionless, like the pathway was somehow more dangerous than before.
Never before had I felt more like the coin Jesus described in Luke 15. It had fallen to the ground and inadvertently been swept away, lost in the cracks of the house. And it would have stayed lost if the woman who owned it had not gone to the trouble of finding it.
I was that coin. And Jesus was a great searcher, as He always is during times when we have lost our way. When the seeds of doubt, fear, and anxiety loom alongside the pathway and obstruct our view of Him. But like the woman in the story, He's not content to leave any of us in the cracks.
In Jesus' story anyone from the outside looking into the house of the searching woman would probably not join in the search because from the outside looking in they would not see the need. The coins in question were ten denari. One denarius was equivalent to a quarter of a shekel, and the shekel was about a day's wage. She loses not a shekel but a quarter of a shekel.
In light of that, it is striking the effort the woman goes to in the search. She is incredibly deliberate and is willing to turn her house upside down to find it. She lights the lamp, she sweeps in the corner, and you can almost see the people looking in the window whispering that this woman is a little bit off. After all, you can understand her being upset at dropping some money, but the amount of effort she puts forth is not equivalent to what was lost. And if those neighbors looking in didn't think she was a little crazy before, how about the fact that she calls for a party when she finds the coin? She wants to host a celebration that would undoubtedly cost more than the amount you found! She buys the hats, the streamers, the cake, the food – all to celebrate finding a sum equivalent to about seven dollars.
It's a lot of effort that leads to the inescapable conclusion: the woman highly valued what was lost. So does Jesus. His search reminds us that we are valued.
Mind you, however, that we aren't valued because we're valuable; we are valuable because we are valued by Him.
What does that search and the assignment of value have to do with shalom? It meant that even when my life felt incomplete and lost, even when circumstances were spiraling out of control, God valued me. And that brings peace. Real peace.
It brings wholeness. It brings completeness. If God values me, then I am in want for nothing else. I can live in shalom because of Him. It is as if Jesus were saying, "Please understand the value you have. Now respond by living in the freedom of wholeness."
