A Divine Traffic Jam
Last weekend we took our 8th graders out to Gig Harbor, WA for a retreat. Just your average, run of the mill christian youth retreat. Totally fun and exciting but something many of you can imagine. Its only about two hours away but it ended up taking seven hours due to a jumper on top of the Tacoma Narrows bridge and ensuing three care accident closing down the lanes on the bridge. I wasn't as upset as I normally would be, (I am not the most patient or gracious driver when stuck in parked traffic) I was actually quite contemplative. Its interesting, Genesis 50 talks about how what man has intended for evil God can use for good. That priniciple rang true I think last Friday night.
I sat in my little Carolla with two jr. high girls and after an hour or two of joking and determing that I should marry Matt Kearney (some hip hop singer I'll never meet, much less actually marry:) and eating two pringle cans and who knows how many M&M's, I finally let God penetrate my defenses and listened to what the Spirit was whispering to me.
The jumper, though I know him not, hit me. I remember a time when I was that confused and hurt and lonely...and selfish. For the first time I realized how selfish I had been 9 years ago when I had contemplated suicide. This guy shut down traffic for litteraly hours. His choice was affecting so many people. Not just his friends and family, complete stangers. Perhaps I am being shallow or just awakening to a new realization--the weight of selfishness is heavy. It infects and destroys and is disdainful. Fortunately the jumper was talked down but for the next two hours I'd sat and wrestled with the selfish girl I had been at 14 and the selfish girl I am now. How so little has changed, except I no longer act it out the same way. I still want attention. Sometimes I don't know if its healthy attention I want or utterly unhealthy. There are times where I can so easily identify with that jumper, where I feel so desperate for attention that I would take equally desperate measures to attain it. Yet something holds me back. I think that would have to be God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ.
I looked at the two girls sitting next to me and prayed so earnestly that they would never be so caught up in despair and selfishness to act out in violence against themselves. That God would protect them from it. But sometimes it is the most vile and painful things we go through that become that which makes bloom. But I still don't want my girls to hurt and behave the way I did...All that from one person. I'm sure I wasn't the only one from all the hundreds, if not thousands, of people who were stuck parked on the freeway becuase of one man's choice.
Funny to think one person could make such a difference...
I sat in my little Carolla with two jr. high girls and after an hour or two of joking and determing that I should marry Matt Kearney (some hip hop singer I'll never meet, much less actually marry:) and eating two pringle cans and who knows how many M&M's, I finally let God penetrate my defenses and listened to what the Spirit was whispering to me.
The jumper, though I know him not, hit me. I remember a time when I was that confused and hurt and lonely...and selfish. For the first time I realized how selfish I had been 9 years ago when I had contemplated suicide. This guy shut down traffic for litteraly hours. His choice was affecting so many people. Not just his friends and family, complete stangers. Perhaps I am being shallow or just awakening to a new realization--the weight of selfishness is heavy. It infects and destroys and is disdainful. Fortunately the jumper was talked down but for the next two hours I'd sat and wrestled with the selfish girl I had been at 14 and the selfish girl I am now. How so little has changed, except I no longer act it out the same way. I still want attention. Sometimes I don't know if its healthy attention I want or utterly unhealthy. There are times where I can so easily identify with that jumper, where I feel so desperate for attention that I would take equally desperate measures to attain it. Yet something holds me back. I think that would have to be God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ.
I looked at the two girls sitting next to me and prayed so earnestly that they would never be so caught up in despair and selfishness to act out in violence against themselves. That God would protect them from it. But sometimes it is the most vile and painful things we go through that become that which makes bloom. But I still don't want my girls to hurt and behave the way I did...All that from one person. I'm sure I wasn't the only one from all the hundreds, if not thousands, of people who were stuck parked on the freeway becuase of one man's choice.
Funny to think one person could make such a difference...
posted by KJ at
11:10 PM
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