Nothing you'd call a trial so far

I’m embarrassed that I’ve ever said my life has been easy.  I wish I could take every single instance back.  I hate it when I try to be honest and it backfires.  Has that ever happened to you?  I hate the condescending looks like little pats on the head, knowing smiles to a little girl who’s still learning.  “Your time will come.”  “Don’t say that out loud.” “Don’t go asking for trials.”  Little meaningful laughs.  I was never trying to get a response, I was only ever admitting that I haven’t had anything super hard yet.  I imagine the second half of my life will be the one with all the tests, so I’m gearing up.  But I cringe when I hear we’re having another lesson about trials at church.  I feel like I’m a naïve child who doesn’t know what real life must be about, a mystery I’m not privy to.  And yet I’m not dumb.  I know enough to know not to pray for trials.  I didn’t say I don’t plan on ever have a really hard thing; I’ve just confessed that so far I can’t seem to commiserate on the same level as people I read about and some I’ve even known.  I acknowledge that I haven’t had cancer, my parents never got divorced, and I never even had a miscarriage.  I haven’t been abducted, trapped in a cave, even had a major accident.  Never broken a bone or even been a patient in the ER, same with all my kids.  I can’t hide those facts.  I’ve never had to leave my home to escape mobs in the middle of winter or bury a child on the frozen plains.  I’ve never been without my faith—it’s been a constant.  I’ve never watched my children go hungry or not know where we’re going to sleep for the night.  I’m drawn to books about lives of people who have overcome obstacles that most of us would find debilitating: being born in a prison camp, a drug-infested neighborhood and household, a country that terrorizes its women; being completely alone in the world, living with a chronic disease or without a complete body.  Abuse beyond imaginings.  To me this is the hard stuff, and this is what I’m talking about when I say I haven’t had any trials.  But I know many of you have, and so of course my life seems rosy.  That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.

Obviously I’ve had people steal from me and lie to me, just as you have.  I have had to work and work to overcome my hot temper and uptight ways, and I struggled with painful jealousy until just a few years ago.  I know, it’s nothing even worth mentioning.  I’ve had people talk about me behind my back, but who hasn’t?  I’ve failed at a million different things. Hasn’t everyone?  I’ve been betrayed and I’ve felt completely misunderstood and alone.  I haven’t been the person I could be even though I’ve known better.  I grew up in a less than ideal world—like most people.  I was so scared at night.  I hated the noises I heard from the neighborhood and fights in the parking lot, the pot coming through our bathroom vent and window from the downstairs neighbors. I still get a tight stomach when I hear rap music because of where I grew up.  I hated going to the laundry mat around the corner from our apartment at 5:30 in the morning with my mom when I was 11 or 12.  I wanted my mom to be around more.  I was scared when the police would come to our building and when we were home alone all summer while my parents worked.  It was hard for me to recover from a c-section with four other kids under the age of 8 with no family in town and Todd working long hours.  I’ve had some sad days after a couple of my babies, but isn’t every mom a little out of it after giving birth?  We’ve had some hard times financially.  Paying bills and talking about money gives me a knot in my stomach even today.  I know that’s why I’m so cheap—I’ve always longed for security and I worry that it will be taken from me.  I struggled with low self-esteem most of my life; most girls do.  I’ve dealt with very, very private things that I kept inside and handled quietly.  One obstacle I finally feel on top of after more than 15 years that I only shared with maybe 3 other people in my whole life.  I have issues with wanting to be a better wife, but who doesn’t?  I sometimes hate the way I parent, I imagine that’s normal.  We struggle with things as a family, things no one knows about; but everyone does.  I don’t really think of these as trials, just weaknesses or little obstacles to work around, regular life we all deal with.  None of it is worth calling a “trial,” it’s just everyday stuff every single person is up against.

But I get it, I know I’m young by some standards and my time will come; I’ve heard it from everyone.  I anticipate “it,” wondering when “it” will come.  I’ve lost four grandparents as well as other loved ones, some who haven’t even died—just left my life without peeping in again.  People I love will continue to pass on.  I’ll have more illnesses and eventually life-altering diseases.  I will continue to have private heartaches.  I will be in more accidents, serve in practically paralyzing capacities, and be scared for my life at times.  Of course dumb things happen, I regret the way I handled lots of things that I’ve lived through.  Many struggles have simply been internal ones that I can’t really share.  Same as everyone.

But I can’t help it that I haven’t had cancer yet, although seeing my sister deal with it was heart-wrenching.  I still feel guilty not being there to help, but I didn’t see how I could leave my five little ones with no one here to take care of them.  I felt helpless as my young daughter suffered through a year of tears and stress as she saw her aunt sick, not knowing how it would all end up.  I saw my other sister deal with hardships of her own and it was devastating to not know how to help her or be physically present for her.  I hated leaving her to deal with so much.  I felt so powerless and I still feel guilty over not coming to her aid at a critical time.  Many people have been abused in all forms, and I don’t know how some of us are lucky enough to avoid that.  It doesn’t seem right to apologize for having been married for nearly 20 years.  I just don’t know any other way to be married but how we’re doing it.   I didn’t know I wouldn’t have fertility problems, but early on we decided we’d think about the peace corps if we did.  I wanted to go on a mission more than anything, like so many of you.  I can’t change the fact that I wasn’t asked to sacrifice in that way.  I can’t help that I happened to be born in a great place in the world at a fabulous time in a family that would teach me so much.  For some reason I wasn’t born during the Depression or in the middle of the Civil War or the Potato Famine, I don’t know why; I just wasn’t.  I just can’t do anything about the trials I haven’t had.  I’m not wishing for them, as some people who don’t know me well enough hint at, although I do anticipate them.   It’s just that when people talk about the big trials, I have to admit that no, I haven’t really experienced that yet.

My one validation came from a grandma friend as we were discussing this topic in church.  She freely admitted to the class that she’d had an easy life.  I about teared up.  I wanted to hug her.  She’s lived a bit longer than me; she has kids my age.  I wondered what she meant.  I would still love to talk to her about it.  It made me think of some of my relatives her age and older.  I think about the money issues they’ve had, concerns about their kids, health problems, heartbreaks.  But don’t we all have things like that?  It just seems heavy to call the bumps in life “trials.”

All I’m really saying when I admit that I’ve had an easy life is that while, obviously, life hasn’t been peachy all the time, most of my days have been pretty good.  I’ve got family (not everyone does), health (for the time being), and my faith.   We, like many of you, have had it so easy compared to those who have lost spouses and children, who can’t have children, who can’t seem to find the right person to marry, who deal with chronic pain or depression or really, really hard issues or pasts.  So many people struggle with real trials—they are imprisoned physically or mentally or spiritually.   For some, abuse lives on in their lives; they can’t seem to escape it.  They’ve lost everything through no fault of their own.  Others can’t seem to catch a break; their whole lives seem to be a trial of their faith.  The worst trial I can imagine is being without hope.  And so many, many are wading through that trial all on their own.

I feel so very, very blessed.  And I know, while most of you have had much, much harder things to deal with than I have, I know you feel very blessed as well.  I have nothing major to complain about, and that’s my frame of reference when I’ve told you I’ve had a pretty simple life.  I expect my trials are still ahead of me.