24...“. . . I am the Lord, who makes all
things,
Who stretches out the heavens
all alone,
Who spreads abroad the earth
by Myself.” NKJV ™
Isaiah 44:24
“I think Clarence might just respond to that by saying sometimes God requires us to walk in His shoes on this earth, and those shoes will vary according to each person. God was so lonely in the Beginning that He created mankind to walk in His garden with Him. He stretched out the heavens for man. He, simply, wants man to recognize the fact, to desire his unique walk with Him. How alone is God when His own precious creation refuses to see Him, to acknowledge Him. How deep is His love for us when He keeps wooing and pursuing and leaves His Holy Spirit behind for that purpose?” Carlie heard Maggie say.
When I go to the garden alone
and the dew is still on the roses,
the voice I hear
with words so dear,
my Jehovah-God discloses.
And, He’ll walk with me.
And, He’ll talk with me
while He tells me I am His own.
And, the joy that is there
as He tarries with care,
all others can surely be shown.
adapted from
C. Austin Miles
Rosie adored being next to her poppa in church, standing, sharing the hymn book, listening as he sang those words from so long ago.
*
“But, you know what, Sweetie . . . ?” Meggie was talking. “Sounds to me like you had been praying. You’d been praying for Carey since you were both young teenagers. God heard those prayers. He heard you. So, perhaps, your life with Carey was something else,
something He required you to do . . . a unique task only you could accomplish. It may have had nothing, really, to do with you. Maybe it was Carey or an onlooker. Maybe it was more than just one person . . . people who needed to glean understandings from your situation. And, that’s what you and I can pray for right now. That your predicament bears good fruit, for God can and does turn evil to good.
“It was so unpleasant for you but we can put it in some kind of perspective. What about all the dear and good people who’ve lived through atrocities—like soldiers in war. They endure terrible things they don’t deserve. And, many don’t make it out alive or unscathed. What is it you used to say? C’est la vie? That’s life, unfortunately. Not even God’s own awesome Bible heroes always saw the righteous justification of their lives here on earth. Take Isaiah, for a very good example—God’s own blessed prophet. The wicked King Manasseh cut him into pieces. And, I can’t say he was dead when it happened.
“Then, there were Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah . . . of whom the Lord God says:
13...“These all died in faith,
not having received the
promises, but having seen
them afar off were assured of
them, embraced them and
confessed that they were
strangers and pilgrims on the
earth.”
35...“. . . Others
were tortured, not accept-
ing deliverance, that they might
obtain a better resurrection.
36...“Still others had trial of
mockings and scourgings, yes,
and of chains and imprison-
ment.
37...“They were stoned, they
were sawn in two, were
tempted, were slain with the
sword. They wandered about in
sheepskins and goatskins, be-
ing destitute, afflicted, tor-
mented—
38...“of whom the world was
not worthy. They wandered in
deserts and mountains, in dens
and caves of the earth.” NKJV ™
Hebrews 11:13, 35-38
“Also, among His heroes of faith, include Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and his parents, Joshua, Israel, Rahab, Barak, Samson, Gideon, Jephthah, David,
Samuel . . .”
33...“who through faith sub-
dued kingdoms, worked righ-
teousness, obtained promises,
stopped the mouths of lions,
34...“quenched the violence of
fire, escaped the edge of the
sword, out of weakness were
made strong, became valiant in
battle, turned to flight the ar-
mies of the aliens.” NKJV ™
Hebrews 11:33 & 34
“When we’re down to the nitty-gritty like you were with Carey, when all’s said and done, it’s how we run the race and how it all ends. Did we keep our eyes on Him? Did we strive to serve Him? Did we persevere for Christ’s sake? If so, we don’t have to worry about what we did wrong or whether we deserved this or that.
“I know . . . I know. Sometimes it does make us think He’s looking at us like we’re so much chopped liver . . . but He made His promise that we’re not . . . not if we love His Son. He loves us, endures and perseveres with us until we pass from this world as we all know we must do.
“And, when our souls come before Him, He requires only one thing—that we believed and glorified His Son on earth. It all comes down to a matter of trust, a
matter of faith. And, maybe, just maybe, when God heard your teenage prayers for Carey, He said,
“‘Now, that’s the girl for Me.’
“I don’t know . . . it’s speculation. But, you’ll know for certain when you see Him face to face. It’ll all be clear.”
21
Executive Function is a complicated array of mental processes the human brain uses to conjoin past experiences with present activities. Executive function enables one to organize, conceptualize, strategize, to observe and recall details. People with disabled or faulty executive function have difficulty managing time and space, perceiving and planning—all necessary qualifiers when guiding one’s own actions. The executive function is called upon every day, every hour to self-regulate personal behavior.
Which functions will be affected and to what extent are determined by the position, degree and type of damage. Rosie’s deficiencies which her father was quite keen to pick up on were created, not just by emotional and physical abuse, but, also, lack of opportunity. Her teachers saw her as a very capable child, generous, willing to help other children, desirous to cooperate and please adult authority. She was a hard and diligent worker, trustworthy and capable in the tasks they asked of her.
However, the classroom setting was well structured, governed by adults, their expectations and the procedures they established. Her teacher was correct to worry about her future—whether she could transpose
today’s lessens and experiences into tomorrow’s actions, whether she would be able to make plans and follow through with them. Rosie was very apt in the classroom setting where other people made the rules—rules that made sense—and set the pace.
Her home life at her mother’s was controlled, manipulated, orchestrated and grossly stifling. She, probably, felt at times as though she were being choked to death, placed in a mental harness in which she must try, continuously, to foresee what her caregivers would come up with next . . . what psychiatrists refer to as hyper-vigilance, always and forever on guard. She had no time to keep track of time since every minute was thwarted with dismal imaginings of others’ making. She had no reason to make plans since her time was taken up by her mother and uncle who could and did sabotage whatever the little girl desired to do.
When her mother learned of some new interest of Rosie’s, all she had to do was say, “Do you really want to do that?” and Rosie dropped it like a hot pota
to. She did reflect upon her work as her teachers required her to check and double check; however, she had no need to evaluate ideas since original ideas were discouraged at home and not expected at school. Because of lack of opportunity, she did not enter into group activities. That which adults perceive as “play” when children gather may well be early incursions into serious brainstorming.
Being with her father, participating in his life, the baby’s anticipated arrival, planning for it gave her her first chance to look ahead in peace and compose ideas for the future. A flourishing environment can and does make up,
at least in part, for abuses.
Carey’s damage to his executive function was caused by head trauma at a time when no one knew such a thing as executive function existed. “Carey’s changed.” the kids would say. “He’s grumpy” . . . or morose or sullen, withdrawn.
How does one contend with such symptoms? Counseling had not come into vogue. His parents had no understanding of his problem and cared even less.
“That’s the way Carey is.” they would say.“It’s his nature.” And, that was that.
And, Carey’s damage engendered tangents far a field from those in Rosie’s experience. In some ways, Carey was better prepared to live in the world, to finance himself, to keep himself gainfully employed. Like Rosie, as a child he was kept under close control by his parents but he was given certain safe zones in which he could experiment and challenge his own abilities, cultivate his interests. He was not, perpetually, on the defensive against the higher powers in his life or forced into out-thinking, maneuvering and evading them at every turn. Even the errands his mother sent him on gave him outlets for a goodly degree of freedom—to meet friends, interrelate with other human beings.
To his misfortune and disadvantage, he didn’t have Martin as a parent like Rosie did.
He realized at an early age that he had some very vivid interests and made plans to indulge them. Before
his accident he was free to work his hobby. He learned skills, finished projects early, checked and double-checked his work on his scooter and, later, motorcycles. He made friends and entered into group activities, albeit mostly around biking.
However, Carey was not adept at asking for help, in fact, became most irritable if he could not figure something out on his own, even to the point of becoming agitated, hostile and sullen. Carey lost track of time, frequently; getting so involved in the moment that time was the last thing on his mind.
His approach was, “If they don’t like it, they can lump it.”
Carey, also, had difficulty expressing himself verbally. The words, simply, would not come to the forefront, causing him to stutter slightly and pause as he struggled to access the correct terminology. He had much difficulty organizing thoughts in proper sequence and, then, expressing that sequence in words.
This challenge was made more critical since marrying Carlie, a young woman whose words came easily to her tongue, so effervescent and tender-hearted. Rather than delighting in his wife thus gifted, he resented her—and more with each day that passed. His blustering toward her was his way of covering up for the short-comings he perceived in himself and the more he was around her, the more he perceived his short-comings. She was a big burr in his blanket, yet, he married her because she was what he wanted to be—or, at least, what he thought he wanted to be.
He found that the women at the rallies were more drawn to him when they learned he was married. His wedding ring, for them, was a challenge, a safety net, in some ways . . . never mind that they toyed with another human being’s life, specifically, Carlie’s.
Around his biker friends he stood out as a paragon of cycle knowledge. If he became nervous around them—which happened quite often—he, merely, began throwing out information from his vast experiences with gears and ratchets, and gadgets, about engines and which were best for different bikes, the various mufflers to use for various effects, how much power you could get by with under the law and how much more you could get by with before they, actually, stopped you, his work repairing and renovating antique scooters which he had been doing since childhood. He knew plenty and never failed to leave the rest plowed under in the dust of his wealth of knowledge.
He reveled in his acumen. The others might have grown to dislike him had he not so freely given away tips and advice when bikers—men and women—asked for help. And, he didn’t hesitate to shed his expensive vest with flourish and flair—treated it like it was just so much toilet paper off a roll—and get down and dirty on someone’s bike with his tool box by his side. Once, again, he found his niche. He was blessed in many ways and never realized it. But, he was, also, painfully aware and divulged to no one the fact that directions and instructions made almost no sense to him. Everything he knew had come through hands-on.
22
Christ speaks
and the words of His choice
are so sweet,
all birds hush from singing.
And, the melody
that He gives to me,
into my heart goes winging.
And, He’ll walk with me.
And, He’ll talk with me
while He tells me I am His own.
And, the joy that is there
as He tarries with care,
all others can surely be shown.
adapted from
C. Austin Miles
The baby girl toddled over to where her daddy sat on the sofa eating watermelon. She was so hungry, so
thirsty. Her body was even more so since her mother hadn’t given her water to drink through the day. While she still had no teeth to masticate solid meat into digestible form, Rosie’s mom gave her finger foods—little sausages, whole-kernel corn, cooked rice, slices of banana. The child did the best she could with the foods, swallowing large chunks in a gulp. Her eyes teared and turned red. Covetous of her daddy’s cool melon with its sweet, wet juice, she clawed into its meat with her tiny fingers reaping very little. So, her daddy cut off ever so slender slivers for his daughter, fearful she might choke on anything larger.
“Just remember, Martin,” his wife said with castigating tone, “the doctor told me, ‘It goes down the same way it goes in.’ If you want to start her early with digestion problems, go ahead . . . and you can stay up nights when she suffers the colic!”
Martin, some weeks back, noticed the baby already had trouble with constipation, fretful stomach cramps. Sometimes, during a meal, she screamed out and cried with such torment, he picked her up, held her, did whatever he could to calm her down, even if it required taking her for walks outside. It was a great mystery to him—these sudden outbursts of excruciating pain and hysteria—and was taking longer and longer to settle her down. When he suggested they take her to the doctor, his wife adamantly refused, accused him of spending money they didn’t have on needless trips to the clinic.
Then, pointed out that, “Instead of sitting on that sofa taking time off from work, you should be in there taking your shower so you can get on the road, earn your pay. Goodness knows, it takes every little bit you make just to get the bare minimum around here. I see women at the grocery. They got food stacked till I think it’s gonna spill out over the basket . . . and there I am with a handful o’ stuff. I guess their husbands have more regard for their wives and family than Rosie and me git.”
She, usually, went off to the kitchen in a pout. Martin could hear her banging pots and pans around, slamming cabinet doors and, now and then, dropping something on the floor—something breakable. Once, it was the porcelain top to the commode. But, she always had a quick excuse for everything, including why he could no longer find his favorite Ernest Tubb records and why the truck window no longer rolled down.
He overheard her laughing while she and Marlon sat under the carport one night enjoying their cup of coffee—this was before Rosie was born—telling Ma
rlon how she ate dried pinto beans just to give the fetus gas. Martin wasn’t sure it worked that way, but the important thing to him was that she did and ate them anyway. In spite of that and anything else his wife came up with, the baby Rosie was born most healthy. A “good baby”, the doctor and nurses called her. Martin thought Rosie was even better than they could ever possibly know, and, oh! what the child endured. A most courageous little tyke.
{“Margaret believes that’s when we’re at our best. That’s when we’re most near to God, when we see things most clearly, albeit with a baby’s point of reference . . . when we’re not long out of the womb.”}
“Then, the world takes over and everything’s up for grabs, a ‘crap shoot’,” as Clarence used to say.
“From time to time,” Martin continued his conversation with the pastor, “I’d see her sitting over there whittling on a fingernail, biting on it, you know. Just one. Later on, I’d happen to look at it and it’d be pointed, sharp as a nail. God forgive me . . . I really believe she stuck Rosie with it for no good reason. One of our neighbors came over to tell me about some land he had up for lease. The man was a very kind, gentle person—wouldn’t hurt a fly. He asked if he could hold Rosie. She was dressed in a beguiling, little dress. I guess she was about ten months old, still in diapers. As my wife was in the process of handing her over, suddenly Rosie screamed out, kept crying so that my wife took her inside the house.
“The poor man was beside himself . . . apologizing, ‘I don’t know what happened. I’m so sorry . . . I’d never have asked if I’d know’d it would bother the baby.’”
“You can’t be too hard on yourself, Martin. We all get hoodwinked into things, circumstances, relationships that turn out to be misbegotten. Take me and my Lizie. As fine as our marriage has been, we’ve had our problems. When we first married, I guess we’d been married close to a year, we were both so proud, maybe even a little amazed that, in that whole time, we’d never argued, not nary a bicker. Even our church members commented on it. Rarely ever the slightest difference of opinion.
“And, then, almost to the day, a year later, the whole top blew off the kettle. And, here I was a preacher, her, a preacher’s wife. I’ve got to say, it took us both, down on our knees all the time—together and on our own—seeking the Lord’s ways in our lives as a couple and as separate people. Slowly, but surely things began to turn around. We got our balance. Misunderstandings still arise, from time to time, but, thank God, none of them have been as severe as that very first one. I think, maybe, it’s because we, now, have a pretty good handle on how to come through the storms. Certainly, it’s not that life’s getting any easier. And, a good marriage takes two . . . both husband and wife working toward an exalted relationship.
Camp Matigua: The Lost And Forgotten Page 12