Stories That Tell A Story: July 2014

Birthday Breakfast

Happy Breakfast Birthday!

It was one of my sons' birthday and Marie had planned a zoo trip because it was also a school holiday. Not knowing about the school holiday until too late, I didn't manage to take leave from work. I was feeling somewhat guilty about it and managed to shift things around my calendar so that we could have a birthday breakfast celebration together.

The breakfast was going fine until the end when we looked up and noticed that the sky had turned dark. Even before I finished saying, "Don't know if it will ...", it started to thunder and rain. For this particular son of mine, birthdays were the paramount social event of the year. His expectation for this to be the perfect day had soared to a crescendo when it was brought crashing down into a bottomless pit; and he began to cry.

Crying Children

The rain that derailed the Zoo plans

Now I hope you will not judge Marie and I harshly. As parents of four boys, we have very little patience for children who fuss or cry. What is worse than having one child cry is having two children cry at the same time (not to mention three) - and they don't always cry about the same things. While dealing with the crying ones, the others who are not crying still need to be tended to. We very quickly move into the "zip it" or face the consequences mode. I think for me at least, my patience with their crying got less as they grew up. So in this instance, statements like "You're a teenager now ...", "You need to learn that there will be disappointments in life ..." and so forth came out from our mouths very quickly. Unfortunately the clouds were also not helping that day - they just got darker and darker, like the mood at the table.

How God Would Respond to Crying?

After the incident I reflected upon my response to my son's crying. Did it mirror how I thought God would respond to me whenever I came to Him with life's disappointments and regrets? Would He tell me to "zip it" or that "Life is tough and what doesn't kill you will make you stronger?".

In response, God brought me back to the story of Hannah in the Bible (in 1 Samuel Chapter 1 - 2). Here was a woman who, at the start of the story, was unremarkable. She was one of two wives of a man. She was stuck in an unenviable situation of having no children while her counterpart had a brood. Therefore she had to endure constant taunts at home. Even though her husband loved her tenderly, it could not fill the deep emptiness her barrenness had left in her heart.

Every year, the family when to Jerusalem for the annual rituals. In one of those years when her torment had been particularly difficult, as the Bible recorded, " In her deep anguish, Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly." The priest in the temple thought she was drunk as he watched her pray (why are we always so judgemental of people who express their grief in public?). As Hannah explained to him: “Not so, my lord, I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.” (1 Samuel 1: 15 - 16)

Sometimes Blue Skies are just round the corner

To cut to the chase, God heard Hannah's desperate cry to Him. Shortly after, she conceived and bore a son who would have a significant role in Israel's history; and thereafter she bore more children. No wonder in 1 Samuel 2: 1-2, Hannah sang a song of praise to God:

“The Lord has filled my heart with joy;

how happy I am because of what he has done!

I laugh at my enemies;

how joyful I am because God has helped me!

“No one is holy like the Lord;

there is none like him,

no protector like our God."

Never too small for God

For all intents and purposes, Hannah was not considered to have been of any significance in her society during the culture of her time; and her prayers to have a child to shed her shame was not exactly world changing. It would have been fair to wonder why God should even listen to her much less answer her prayer? But He did. I think the point is this - whether it is the deep desires of a woman for a child or the wish of a birthday teen to have a zoo outing, God hears us. Sometimes we are wrongly led to believe that either we are of no significance or our prayers are overly parochial and self-centred for God to hear us.

I do not want to make God out to be just a Santa Claus up there in the sky who is there to make our every wish come true. I believe neither are we spoilt kids who throw tantrums when we don't get exactly what we want. Growing up my parents would say whenever I was in the toy shop "You can see but you cannot ask to buy." Not every desire is wrong and we often bury these deep because we've been taught from young it's wrong to want. What we really long for is that someone, no less the God of the universe, to hear us and acknowledge our deepest cries, our keenest needs as valid and worthy. Knowing that we have been heard is what we really want. We can also trust that after hearing He will take the best course of action on our behalf. As the Christian author Josh McDowell said "He who knows you best, loves you most".

Happily ...

As a happy ending, while the skies didn't clear quick enough for my son to have his birthday zoo trip, they spent a terrific few hours at a shopping mall and capped off the day with a ride in a cable car when the sun and blue skies returned several hours later. He didn't get exactly what he wanted but he agreed that in the end it was a terrific day after all.

As I learnt, God always hears us when we cry and has compassion on us. I pray that He will also give me that compassion the next time my children cry in front of me.