I had to wait three days before hearing from my attorney in regard to his opinion on how the pedestrian's death would affect my traffic case...and, more realistically, affect ME. Like I said, waiting felt like an eternity. But, that period of waiting ended up serving as proof of the most crazy, freeing transformation thus far in my life.
I was somehow remarkably calm during the wait. I was concerned. I was worried. I didn't have any idea what my attorney would say or how he'd react. I didn't know what the DA would do in response to this news. I didn't know if I'd somehow end up in jail for her death....
But, somehow - very abnormally for me up until that point in my life - I wasn't an emotional basketcase. I think I'd just gotten to a point with the entire situation where nothing surprised me anymore...nothing had gone as I'd expected it to so far and so I didn't feel like I had the ability to even guess what anything would look like in the future. I wasn't numb. I just didn't know how to feel or react. While aware of the potential massive and terrible implications for me, I was choosing to suspend judgment until I heard/had concrete facts in one direction or the other.
True to my friend's words so many months before, during that entire season everything felt like it had been stripped away from me - my sense of safety at work and behind the wheel of my car, my reputation, my ideas of fulfilled dreams and long-desired relationships, hope, security, expectations, pride, even my plans for my tax return (sounds silly now but I was MAD when I had to use that money to pay a lawyer)....
But, also true to my friend's words, through the entire nightmare that the process had been until that point, while I had been stripped of everything that meant anything to me, I actually gained so much more than I'd ever expected for my life period. I finally understood the great, unconditional, unending, unfailing love and tenderness of the Father. I know I mentioned the moment-by-moment ways that my gracious Father spoke, directed and provided for me, but they weren't just mere moments that He happened to intervene. They illustrated and drove home something so deeply into my heart that it's difficult even to put into words for you.
Those moments proved to me just how involved He is in my life, just how much He cares, just how much He sees every single element of my life all of the time, no matter what - whether He's silent or whether He acts. During the entire process of the accident and everything surrounding it, I was stripped of everything....and was no longer able to rely on anything of my own...my strength, my intellect, my experience, my reputation, my wisdom, my personality, my abiliites. BUT, I was finally able to see Him more clearly than I'd ever seen Him before. Turns out He's so much more real and tangible than everything else in life. Everything else in life truly is merely secondary, merely a vapor, so much LESS important and real than He is.
Before you decide that I'm insane, please hear me out. I wish I had adequate words to describe what I'm saying, what I experienced and how it's revolutionized my life...but the best I can do is compare it to the story of Stephen in the Bible. (And, no, I don't think of myself as a martyr....just keep reading....)
There's a moment in Stephen's narrative where Luke (the writer) says, "All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel" (Acts 6:15 - emphasis mine), and later - just as Stephen was about to be stoned to death - "When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:54-56 - again, emphasis mine).
My entire life - whenever I'd read those words - I always wondered how Stephen could be so serene in the midst of chaos and how he could seem completely unaffected by the raging crowd - even ignoring it and his impending death, instead seeing God in front of him.
But, through my entire experience with the accident and its aftermath, Stephen's actions finally started to make sense. God was more real than everything else. God was more enduring that my momentary circumstances. God was more important than my reputation, my sense of security and safety, my dreams, my hopes, my money....my everything. And, yet, in finally truly grasping just how much more real and more important He was, I also realized (paradoxically) how truly important I was to Him, how deeply loved I was, how fully seen I was, and how He really did hold me in His hands.
SO....in those three days I was waiting to hear back from my attorney, all of the truths I just explained to you became mind-blowingly apparent to me. And, in so doing, I arrived at a moment of truth and decision in my heart. Not knowing it was just a few hours before my attorney would finally call me back, I remember coming face to face with everything and saying to the Lord, "I trust You. I surrender to You. I trust You with my reputation, with my future, with my everything. If I am charged with this woman's death somehow and have to go to jail, I will be terrified...and yet....and yet, I choose to believe that You have a purpose and reason even for that. That You will make good out of an awful situation. I trust You with my house, my mortgage, my small group, my family, my future and my life. Going to prison and/or losing everything in my life would be horrendous...but I trust You."
And, I don't know how to explain it - it took me a LONG time to get to the place I just described (not just the three days of waiting for my lawyer's call, not just the six months since the accident...but nearly 30 years of my life) - but, with that prayer, everything was over. In the best and most real of ways. It no longer mattered what my attorney said. It no longer mattered if I'd be charged with her death. It no longer mattered how everything would turn out. All that mattered was the sure-fire certainty I had - more real than anything I'd ever experienced, known or believed - that with God on my side, nothing I came up against in this life could compare to knowing Him.
No comments:
Post a Comment