Blind, Blind, Blind!

David Copperfield's wonderful aunt, the eccentric Betsey Trotwood, says to him at one point (being older, wiser, and having suffered her own disastrous marriage, she could readily see that he was allowing infatuation with a young immature girl to completely gloss over and rob him of what would end up being the great love of his life), "Blind, blind, blind!"

Someone should have said that to my mom and dad.

This is a picture of their wedding day. As soon as mother turned 18, free of the need for her mother's permission, she married my father on her own. They are the couple in the middle of the picture. Dad was a tall six foot seven and mom a petite five three and three-fourths (she was very proud of the fraction that almost added another inch to her height).

My mother's story went along the lines of, "We wanted to get married as soon as possible because your father had been diagnosed with a heart murmur" (resulting from scarlet fever when he was fourteen) "and we didn't know how long he had left. We wanted to be together as long as we could." Rarely did the story continue without a bitter aside about my grandmother not being "for" the marriage. (Notice--no mom in the picture!)

In my teens, I took my grandmother to task. Why had she been against their marriage? "I wasn't against it, Janinita," Grandma explained to me. "It's just that I wanted them to wait till they finished their schooling." Score one for Grandma.

So, against Grandma's wishes, they hastened into matrimony. Ten months later, along came a baby. Three weeks later my father suffered a major heart attack and died.

Then, a few years ago, my mother (bless her heart, she never did "get" how words could affect people--some things are better left unsaid), in passing, happened to mention that the year after my father died she heard on the radio that they had developed an operation that could help people with the type of heart problem my father had.

I have no words to tell you how much this devastated me. Why, oh why, hadn't they waited? Why hadn't they listened to grandma? The year Grandma had asked them to wait might have given my dad the opportunity to be helped through that operation. I might have been able to have a few precious years with my father. But being young and obstinate, failing to see the wisdom of following parental advice, they went full steam ahead with marriage, my father worked himself to death lifting heavy glass milk bottles as a milkman (the doc had specifically told him to refrain from lifting heavy things), and they walked right into a recipe for disaster.

How I wished Mom hadn't shared this with me! I had to pray to forgive her--all over again! It had been hard enough to get the victory over the baggage that came with a dysfunctional family--now she carelessly threw another rock that splashed ripples of bitterness into my psyche. Thank you very much, Mom! (Not!)

God is nothing if not faithful and of course He helped me overcome this new well of bitterness--but how I wish I could shout from the rooftops: SLOW DOWN! LISTEN TO THE ADMONITIONS FROM YOUR MOM AND DAD! THERE'S WISDOM BEHIND THOSE GREY HAIRS!

But at the end of the day, I bow down to the loving hand of God, Who, as we see in the book of Job, personally sifts through everything that touches our lives, and does not allow anything that we cannot stand up against to touch us. What He does allow, even if not in itself good, in His great love He will turn to our good. I would not be who I am without the valleys I have walked through. Dysfunctional family. No father … Lessons learned by walking through dark valleys are sometimes bitter pills to swallow, but on the other side there is a mountaintop of God's presence.

"Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore" (Psalm 16:11).

So, no matter what life throws your way, know that He who created you, He who gave His life for you, will help you through. It will get better.