She weeps and wails that she never had a father, that her mother was deficient in natural mothering skills. She grieves for something that can never be reversed or changed because it is history. Every move she makes, every ill advised choice, every time she is confronted for bad behavior, she sobs, “But you don’t understand...” and then deflects blame on some offense from her past. In truth she does have many to fall back on.
She is a master at sidestepping. She has fine-tuned manipulation skills that have worked well for her and have helped her to float lightly on the deep waters of self-control and personal responsibility without having to actually submerge and get wet. She is never wrong, nothing is ever her fault and therefore, she never repents or apologizes. She can turn on the tears in a nano second and uses bawling as a clever substitution for contrition.
Since she cannot seem to have what she wants, either a time machine to go back and relive the childhood she thinks she should have had, or a knight in shining armor to come scoop her up and give her the life she desires, she does only what she has to do and eats and sleeps her weekends away. And grieves. And constantly picks at her emotional wounds so they can never heal. And heaves big sighs. And behaves badly from time to time.
And then she blames. It is a circle she is trapped in.
When asked, “So, basically you are on hold until you get what you think you must have to be happy?”
She replies, “I just want to know what my purpose is.”
“What if your purpose is something other than what you’ve decided it is?”
No response.
“What if God doesn’t send us a registered letter telling us what we are here to do?”
No response.
“What if we walk out in faith and then trust that God is able to guide us into His purpose, for His sake, not ours?”
No response.
“So, if God gave you exactly what you want, someone to love you, your own home, a child, you would be different, completely transformed? You would know how to be a good wife and mother?
“Yes.”
“You would know how to raise a child in the way he should go? Teach him all the things your mother did not know how to teach you?”
“Yes.”
“If you believe you have what it takes to teach a child right from wrong, where did you learn it? If you already have the knowledge you need, why do you keep blaming your mother for not teaching you the things you claim to know? Maybe God has been loving and parenting you all along and you didn’t know it. If He loves you enough to parent you, maybe it is time to recognize it, give Him credit and find out what you can do to love Him back.”
“You don’t understand,” she wails.
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Resignation or Acceptance?
It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good. I Samuel 3:18
Eli was resigned to the will of God as revealed by Samuel. Resignation is better than rebellion or a stiff-upper-lip Stoicism, but it is not the highest attitude. We acquiesce and resign to the inevitable because we have to! After all, there isn’t much we can do about it.
Resignation may bring a martyr complex and a selfish pride at putting up with whatever comes. Better than all this is acceptance: accept the will of God when adversity comes, learn whatever lessons are in it and believe that it works for our good. That is a wholesome and healthy spirit. Rebellion or a mere endurance of affliction may wreck us. Resignation may make us “proud that we are humble.” Acceptance falls in with God’s plan and purpose and enables us to safely trust, even though we may not fully understand.
Some things, of course, are never meant to be accepted. They are the will of the devil and must be resisted and defeated. But that which cannot be changed may be turned to God’s glory and our good if accepted and transmuted from a burden into a blessing.
Vance Havner
