Thursday, January 22, 2009
identifying with "monsters"
12:00 PM by Christi Bowman
God is using all that I have screwed up in this life to help me see my own face in the least of these...the body of Christ (Mt 25:40). I would not trade this gift of God for anything.
On Sunday a friend of mine emailed me a link to one of the Chicago papers. The story was about a daycare provider who had killed a baby in a split second of bad decision making. The story was heartbreaking. The daycare provider was a girl in her teens.
The paper reported that this girl had used her Myspace to tell all of her friends how much she loved her job and the children she took care of. When she was interrogated she told the police that the noise level in the room had risen to a level that she couldn't handle and when the baby she was holding would not stop crying, in a moment of anxiousness, she snapped and threw him to the floor. She told the police that the baby, after being thrown to the floor, quietly crawled to his blanket and then into a bouncy seat, alone.
As I read how the baby handled that situation I began to cry, and I began to cry for the mother who, after reading this story, would know that her baby suffered alone; but I also cried for the teenage girl because I knew that if not for the grace of God that would have been me.
I know what it is like to be overcome and panicked by noise that needs you. I know what it is like to experience an overwhelming sense of anxiousness in that moment; realizing that you have lost all control and there is nothing to be done about it. I know all to well the oppressive voices that tell you it is ok to give into your primal urges to end the anxious torment. I know what it is like to react to an overwhelming situation without thinking only to shrink back in horror at what you are actually capable of. I know how excruciating it feels, in the moment, to stop the flesh and tell the voices "no" when all the flesh really wants to do is hurt until it stops hurting.
As I cried for the baby, the family, and the girl the grief of God overwhelmed me as I saw what He saw. I was horrified for His sake as I realized that what I was experiencing over one situation He experienced hundreds of times, daily, as other situations like this and those similar to it play out every second.
I knew that He wept as He watched His baby crawl into that bouncy seat alone because that baby's life was precious to Him.
I knew that He wept for the mother of the baby, His little girl, as she must now pay for the sins of another with the life of her own. He knows that she will have to come face to face with her demons as she digs deep within herself for forgiveness and the courage and strength to go on.
I also knew that He wept for the girl who threw the baby because she is His little girl as well and He loves her and He payed for her loss of control when He said "It is finished." He is not mad at her because He knows better than anybody that she is not a monster; "our fight is not against flesh and blood." God knew that satan used His precious little girls anxiousness for His own gain. He knew that satan was responsible for stealing, killing, and destroying yet again. God wept because, for her own good, He could not use His power to save her, the baby, or the baby's mother. He wanted to reach out and heal that baby so that the baby could live and the baby's mother would be able to watch her child grow, but He loves His little girl so much that He couldn't because He knows that she must come to terms with her demons and the only way she can do that is if she faces her consequences. This is a part of her her life story, her journey, and she must walk it. He is aware of the chance He takes by letting her face her consequences...she may blame Him, but He is also aware that she would have never known Him in that moment if He had healed the baby.
I watched as people said cruel things about God's precious little girl on Facebook and they stung as if they were being said about me.
"But for the grace of God, go I"
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