In the Tragedies

I had the most disturbing dream last week.

I was stopping for something at my theater (although the building wasn’t really my theater, even though in my dream it was supposed to be my theater – you know how that is), and there was a gang of thuggish-looking punks hanging out on the front lawn. They seemed to be ignoring me, so I went in and out a few times doing whatever it was I needed to do. But on my final trip outside, I saw that the gang was gone – as was my car with my purse and phone inside.

I can’t find a word strong enough to describe my feelings in that moment. That may seem silly; it was just a dream. But oh, people . . . 

The panic – the complete, utter panic. I couldn’t call anyone for help; I didn’t have my phone. And even if I went to a business and borrowed a phone, I couldn’t remember anyone’s number – they are all saved on my phone. I couldn’t get home; I didn’t have a car, I didn’t have a phone to call a friend or an Uber, and I had no credit card to pay for an Uber anyway. And even if I got home, I had no key or garage door opener to get into my house. And nobody in my life would miss me to come looking for me or would know where to look for me even if they did wonder where I was. Plus, if my car and stuff were such easy pickings for this gang, what would stop them from coming back for more of me?

Y’all. I’ve never felt such danger and helplessness. Thank God it was a dream.

That feeling wasn’t entirely foreign to me. Occasionally, my vivid imagination will take me to a place where, for whatever strange reason, I imagine the scenario of something horrific happening one of my daughters . . . and I have to turn my brain off immediately. Because that feeling – that panic, that sense of the world caving in beneath me and there is nothing to break my fall into the abyss, that terrible swell of devastating emotion – will only be starting to rise before I realize it is beyond what I can handle. So I shut it off.

It does make me wonder sometimes how I would really react in such a crisis. Lord willing, I’ll never have to know.

In Sunday School yesterday, a man brought up the fact that although he does believe that God is capable and willing to forgive even the greatest of sinners, if that sinner were someone who had done horrible things to his children, he couldn’t honestly say he would want God to give him that grace. He said he wasn’t proud of it, but “that’s just me.” We assured him that it wasn’t just him; many of us would have that struggle. Crisis does awful things to even the best of us.

I suppose many would argue that I actually have experienced that kind of devastating crisis – the events that led to my divorce qualify in the minds of many. Many friends have told me they could never have gotten through that the way I did.

And I think there’s a valuable lesson there. I didn’t know that crap was coming, but God did. And although I didn’t realize it, he was preparing me for it. Devastating as it was, he had already been building up what was needed in me to get through it.

It’s almost impossible to imagine surviving something like a horrific accident taking the life of a loved one . . . or an evil person doing horrific damage to a loved one . . . and again, I pray the Lord protects us all from such tragedy. But we are not protected from every tragedy. So, so many of us have our defining moment – the Point of No Return – the event from which we henceforth describe our lives as pre-tragedy and post-tragedy. The moment that comes out of nowhere, knocks us off our feet, and changes everything irreparably.

Except God didn’t change. And God wasn’t surprised. And God is still the rock on which we can curl up and lie when we can’t stand anymore.

We don’t have to prepare ourselves for the great tragedies of our lives if we know God. Really know him, with intimacy and trust. Growing that kind of relationship with him is not only the preparation we can make -- it's the best preparation.