One Of Those People

12/14/2005

I was driving my very large truck home from work the other night, listening to some great country music. As the CD played along, my mind wandered from one thing to the next, and once again I found myself "there"…in that very strange place of thinking about being, "one of those people." You know them, I know them, but when it's us, it's hard to even comprehend even years later sometimes where we are in life.

Let me explain… Have you ever known "one of those people" that just won the lottery? They can't believe their numbers finally came up. After so many years of playing, the pot of gold has finally come home?

Or, what about "one of those people" on the "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." Their family has been picked to have a new home built in one week--one that will be beyond their wildest dreams. After seeing the show many, many times, now it's their turn. Ty and his team turn up out front one morning and yell into the bullhorn, "Good morning Smith family!!!"

Then there's the tragedy side of being "one of those people." Like the time we were living in England and the quake of 1989 struck the San Francisco Bay Area. How strange it was to watch the news, seeing freeways we were so familiar with collapsed, pieces of the Bay Bridge missing. Fires burning in the city and although we were thousands of miles away, our hearts were there…this time it wasn't some foreign land, our families were "one of those people."

In the strange lives we live, most times our thinking is not only that the very good will happen to others, but also the very bad. As many lottery tickets as we might buy, we hear the chances of ever winning are about as good as being struck by lightening. Do we really ever expect to pick up a check one day for $300 million dollars? Do we really think one day we'll be "one of those people?" Oh, we like to dream and hope and plan how we would share the wealth, but if it ever did happen we would be in shock!!

The same can be said for some tragedies in our life--do we really expect anything bad will happen in our own families? Can we really ever imagine that one day we could be "one of those people" to actually get cancer, to be paralyzed in an accident, to be filing for divorce, to have a fire burn down our house instead of some house across town?

That's where I was tonight in my thoughts, driving home, thinking about my life and in some ways still trying to fully comprehend that our son got cancer, that he was just like "one of those" poster children so many donate towards at St. Jude's Hospital. I see the ads all the time, I see the children who are fighting for their life…but that was our life, or our son's life, and he fought with every ounce of energy he had to survive that dreaded disease called leukemia.

He was "one of those" children, but he no longer is. His battle ended, and the fiercest battle of our lives began…to live without him each day. Now we're "one of those" parents that we never imagined we would be, and sometimes still it seems so hard to believe, and it feels so very odd at the same time because we never expected to be "one of those people."

Sometimes I have to run it through my mind…that our son actually got leukemia, that he actually didn't survive it, that this is our reality now. It's not that the missing is not there, because it is, that's the easy part to grab hold of, the one that tries to steal all the joy out of a parent's heart-what I have trouble with sometimes is that this is my life, not just the story of someone else's.

Do you ever feel that way? I'm sure a lot of us do during our lifetimes, like the person I went to see yesterday. I spent the day in the city of San Francisco. Most would think, "Wow! What fun!" But, this was a different visit to the city; I was there to see a long-time friend who is in the cardiac care unit at UCSF. She is fighting for her life right now because of a disease called pulmonary hypertension. She is in need of a double lung transplant ASAP!

I caught BART over to the city, and then needed to find the right bus to take me on the second part of the journey to the hospital. What an adventure that became! I got on a bus all right, but not the right one. When the driver told me I was at my stop, I asked him where the hospital was? He said walk down fourth street and you'll see it…he was wrong! I called Jim on my cell phone, gave him the cross-streets I was at, and he got me turned in the right direction towards the hospital which was over 20 blocks away!! Yes, I could have caught another bus, but it would have only taken me part of the way, with a transfer, and it seemed I might get there faster by walking…it was a beautiful day, thank you God! An hour and a half later, I arrived at UCSF!

I was "one of those people" lost in the big city! And as I walked along I saw many wonderful sights, large churches, interesting houses, people of all kinds, even the homeless living in the parks or wherever they could find a place to stay. Jim was a bit nervous as he talked to me while I walked through many different areas…calling off the streets as I made my way through the neighborhoods and parks. I was a bit breathless when I came to the hilly areas that led up to the hospital, but I thought of my friend who was breathless and fighting for her life. I told Jim I would rather be breathless climbing a hill to the hospital than being a patient in the hospital with those symptoms.

I finally arrived at my friend's room. She said, "You're never late." I told her the story of my journey! We laughed! We had lunch together, and we talked about her condition…the turn in the road her life has taken. As I road BART into the city that day, I thought back on the year we met at age 14, and how innocent we were then. I thought of where the last 35 years have brought us, to places we never would have imagined. One day soon, she will have someone else's lungs in her body, and as another family grieves, she will rejoice at the new life she has been given. She will be "one of those people" who is the recipient of one of those little stickers many of us put on our driver's licenses okaying the giving of our organs should we no longer need them…that will be her story when she gets the phone call that will change her life.

No matter what our journey, eventually we all become "one of those people" we never thought we would be. Some win the lottery, some end up on a T.V. show, some nurse a sick relative, some are paralyzed, some get that dream job…what it all ends up being is just our lives, the journey we are on. When we are in the middle of it, it can still seem impossible that we have taken such a turn in the road. Some turns we choose, others we don't. It's all what makes the world go round, and we can't sit outside and just watch, it just doesn't work that way. We are involved, like it or not. It's what we're doing here, as we grow and learn and adjust and come ever closer to finding out who this big, awesome, all-powerful God of the Universe really is and what we're going to do about Him--because He is not to be ignored.

Oh, but many of us try. We try to bury Him under our lives, busy ourselves with our own schemes and plans and strategies on how to work things out in a way that we think will be best for us. When Jesus says, "pick up your cross and follow me," we don't want to be "one of those people." That's not the way we had things planned. It usually doesn't fit very well in our schedule, not if we're going to get where we're going when we planned on getting there…we gotta keep moving and we'll deal with this whole God issue at another time. God knows that, He's not oblivious to our obliviousness of Him. He's well aware that we're ignoring Him, too busy for Him, not interested in following Him anywhere. We may be fooling ourselves, but we're total fools if we think we're fooling Him for one nanosecond.

He made us, created us with a free will, and now's He's just waiting to see what we're going to do with it…how we're going to spend our time, our money, our resources, our health, our gifts and the talents that have all come from Him. Some of us start out so well, so well-intentioned, and we are willing to be His…but then, our focus gets fuzzy as the world starts to suck us back into the chaos that surrounds us. We get buried in the details.

Why is it the enemy will constantly try to bury us under things?
Is it his only weapon against the Light…to keep us in the dark?
Why is it God wants us to be still and know that He is God?
Is it because that's where His light shines best…eliminating the darkness?

We all need to stop…stop…stop…and pay attention to what's happening. If we have to, we need to call for help and have someone else take a look at the paths we are on because we may be too blind to see what's going on, just like I needed to call Jim and say, "Help! I'm lost!" He was able to turn me in the right direction and get me to my destination. Sometimes it will leave us breathless, after everything we've been through in life, it can be a long, uphill journey, but we will arrive safely when we are focused on where we are headed each day of our lives. We don't want to get so wrapped up in our troubles that we lose sight of God's purpose in all of it, which is to know Him more and more, and to be able rest in Him no matter what. God wants us to see things through His eyes…

I wanted to see the city I was walking in through God's eyes yesterday. I didn't want to miss the reason I was walking instead of riding…just as I don't want to miss seeing things through God's eyes when I'm driving home and I'm sifting through my thoughts once again, saying, "Okay, wait now, this is my life, our son got sick, he died, this is real, I'm living through this, I'm "one of those people" I'd never imagined I'd be…" I don't think those thoughts are wrong but instead that they are part of fully comprehending what's really going on here--that this IS life, that these things DO happen, that it's all part of how the world works and I'm part of this world. No one is immune to this life, and until we are ready to understand that concept we will always feel removed from reality. We will always think it will happen to the other guy--he will win the lottery, she will get cancer, he will land the perfect job, she will get the phone call that will change her life…

But we're not alone, we're all in this together. We were all born here, no one has come in from another world to join us here. Only Jesus started out in heaven and was here when time began. He experienced all the things we all do here as far as pain and sorrow and joy and laughter. The only thing He didn't do was bend to temptation, although He paid the ultimate price for our sin when we are tempted and give into it.

Having come from heaven and being God's only Son, Jesus fully grasped what all this was all about. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt how temporary all this is. He never got caught up in His own agenda because His agenda was always that of His Father. He was never just "one of those people" because nothing about His life was ordinary. As I saw on a license plate tonight driving home, "HESENT1." There's only one Son of God, and that was Jesus Christ. He never got confused about His role here, His purpose or His destiny. He knew it from the beginning and moved towards it until the end of His earthly life, it was everything He was, is and will ever be…He came to be the Savior of the world and He is to this day!

Why have we come here?
What is our purpose, our destiny, our role?
If God put us here for a reason, which I believe He did, how do we go about finding out what that reason is?
Was Jesus' life less complicated because it was so perfectly spelled out for Him?
Did His understanding of all that keep Him perfectly focused?
How did He keep from getting sidetracked on other things, or stressed in the confusion of the moment, or over-energetic to the point of taking control in His flesh instead of remaining in the supernatural realm?
What was the one thing that made it all work so perfectly for Him each day, and is it possible for us to grab hold of that and follow in His footsteps?

A whole lot of questions…where do we find the answers? If not in God's Word, then I don't believe the answers exist. So many talk of this and that, arguing this point and that point, but what is it based on? What is the source? If we do not start with Absolute Truth, everything that would come after would be off kilter, not able to stand the test of time and all the conditions of life we must face.

Jesus stood on Absolute Truth, everything He did was based on it, and He never varied from what He set out to do. Wherever He went, whatever He did, He had one purpose in mind…being obedient to His Father's will. He knew there was a perfect plan and He knew that He was a part of it. He knew that His Father was in control. Total focus, total concentration--being in this world but not of this world at all times. Seeing the events unfold around Him, being an active participant in many of them, but always understanding that it was a very small piece of a very large picture His Father was painting--A picture that would one day be finished when a new heaven and a new earth were created.

Jesus was never concerned or full of anticipation about being "one of those people" who might face tragedy or might win the lottery. To Him, everyone was "one of those people" that He loved and cared about, and whose hearts He sought after to bring them Home with Him one day.

Once when Jesus' mother and brothers came to see him,
they couldn't get to him because of the crowds. Someone
told Jesus, "Your mother and your brothers are outside,
and they want to see you."
Jesus replied, "My mother and my brothers are all those
who hear the message of God and obey it."
Luke 8:19-21 (NLT)

The disciples argued about who would be the greatest in the Kingdom, who would sit next to Jesus…they wanted to be "one of those people" that made it to the top, got the biggest prize, felt the most special…Jesus knew their focus was off. In His eyes, they already were "one of those people" because that is all mankind to Him. Everyone is special, everyone has a story, everyone experiences the good and bad in life, and everyone has a reason for being here. There was no need to covet or despise being "one of those people," because it made no sense to a God who made all people and whose plans were perfect for their lives.

We see the lives of others as being different than our own when they are so very similar in many ways. The events may be different but the emotions are much the same. What I feel as I drive home and think about missing my son, about all that we have been through with his life and his death, how very odd it is that we have experienced something that we would never have imagined in our younger days, so do those who have gone bankrupt, had a leg amputated, fought in a war, filed for divorce, are living with a transplanted organ, etc…they wonder how they became one of those people that they never imagined would be them on this day. But those days come to all of us in one way or another, and all that God asks of us through any of it is to remain focused on Him and trust that He will show the way Home.

We all become "one of those people" for a reason, because God has a plan to use it in our lives for a specific purpose that will bring Him the glory when all is said and done. He does not do it so we will feel isolated in our pain, our missing, our shame or our trauma, that's only what the enemy wants for us. That's why he will come at us with those thoughts when we are out on the road, alone in our truck--our mind will be tempted to go to places like that, to places of wondering how we got "here"…it's a time of isolation where we can be lured by the enemy to feel sorry for ourselves, to make us feel separated from "normal society" because of what has happened. He'll make us think that we're now "one of those people" and we are to be viewed as different, as wounded, as sinful… But, we are not separate and we are not to be pitied, we are one and the same as all the rest of this human race…all having our own trials and struggles and failings and successes and joys and sorrows and laughter and pain.

If the enemy can isolate us and make us feel alone, he can keep us from sharing our hearts with one another. If he succeeds in doing that, he can keep us in the dark about what's really going on in this world…the enemy doesn't want us to know that there is a battle going on around all of us and he is losing that battle in the lives of those who call upon the Lord to save them!

The enemy doesn't want us to understand that there is an Absolute Truth, he would rather keep us confused and changing our minds all the time about what it is we are to believe depending on the latest news reports or fads that come and go. If he can keep us separated and feeling so alone, it won't be as easy for us to build on the Truth that others have learned and can share with us, and visa-versa. Separation techniques are vital to the enemy's success, just as healthy relationships are an integral part of God's work in our lives.

Working in our church office here as a receptionist right now, I see many people who come in for help in one-way or another. Just recently "one of those homeless people" came in, needing some assistance. She stood at my desk and poured out her heart about her life's struggle. She had spent 20 years in the military, and then worked a job for many years but because of a turn in the road, she was dealing with some hard times. As she told me about her situation, I listened and encouraged her and helped her in whatever areas I/we as a church body could do, but at the same time I was thinking how she must view me…I was dressed for work, I had a job, I was the one behind the desk. I was smiling and working with her through her situation…and she might have thought how easy my life must be as compared to her situation right now. On this day, she looked down and out, but I could not know how I looked to her…

She is "one of those people" we will avoid because we don't understand them and they scare us just a bit. But they all have a story, just as we do, and the enemy knows if he can keep us separated, not sharing with one another, he can keep us isolated in our pain and lead us to become judgmental of one another. You see, the judgments work both ways…I could have thought of her as a deeply troubled person, needing to just get a job, and get her life together. But then I would not be seeing her as God sees her, a woman on a journey that hopefully will bring her closer to Him.

Upon looking at her resume, which we were sending out to help her get a new start, I got to see that she was educated, gifted in many areas, a hard worker willing to start anywhere doing anything to get her life back on track again. As I talked with her, I found out she was articulate and personable, and full of the joy of the Lord. She was proud of her children and shared of the blessing they were to her, not wanting to interfere in their lives with her own difficulties.

I was given some insight into her heart, and it was a blessing to me. She returned just the other day for continued help in finding a job, and after some talk and some phone calls, she went on her way, hopeful for what was to come. During that visit, she had asked me if I was ready for Christmas…I looked at her and I said, "You know, after losing our son a few years ago, I like to keep it very simple because Christmas is in here to me…" (Gesturing to my heart.) I guess it was time to share a few of my struggles with her and let her know that I don't have it all together, that I have my own trials and heartaches. I was not just a woman behind a desk, with a job and dressed for the "part." I was not that different from her…maybe she walked away on that day with a different view of me too.

Pity parties, depression, isolation, drug and alcohol abuse, busy-ness, anger, judgmental attitudes, short-tempers, etc…are all weapons used in spiritual warfare to aid and abate the enemy in his ploy to keep us from ganging up on him with God's Truth that is found in studying the Word, prayer, fellowship, peace and quiet, clean living, right thoughts, forgiveness towards others, self-control etc…

The enemy wants us to think we're just "one of those people" that are different now, alone in the world, looked at strangely, not accepted fully, resented by many, judged and pitied and condemned by the multitudes when the truth is, we are the multitudes, one and the same, joined together by the very fact that each life is a story, and that story is meant to be shared with others so we can all grow and learn together.

If you're feeling like you're "one of those people" right now…the kind you've always heard about but never thought you'd be…you are! And so is everyone else! You're not alone, you're not different, you're not a failure or a success, you are you as God made you and He wants you to reach out to those around you and help them to know that they are not alone either.

I'm not one of those mothers now, who have lost a child and will feel forever separated from "normal society." Normal society? What is that? That is what the enemy tells us everyone else is, a place that we're not welcome to be a part of anymore…we're different now, alone in our pain, to be pitied…hogwash! I am you, you are me, we all struggle and feel pain and long to be welcomed and loved and accepted no matter what has happened.

Especially during this holiday season when so many feel lonely for whatever reason, let's hang in there together and kick the enemy out!! He's not one of our people!! Let's let the enemy know he's not welcome in our lives.

God's Blessings,
Diane