Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Proverbs 15:1 (05/18/23)
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TITLE: A Whisper Through the Pain | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
05/23/23 -
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I never knew my mom. In some of my early days I wish I hadn’t known my father either. I understand that the twelve-year-old farm girl next to us had done the best she could when my mother collapsed at her door in a pool of blood. The mile trek had taken everything out of the valiant hero who had given her all to bring me to life. My mother wasn’t like a sheep or goat doing its duty and the girl wrapped my squalling form in a towel and said a quick prayer as my mother closed her eyes for the last time. Or, so that girl told me when I’d grown up.
It was no one’s fault that all the men and women of the community were miles away raising a barn and taking in a harvest. That’s what communities do in the country. It wasn’t my father’s fault that he unleashed his volcanic rage on the son who reminded him of what he’d lost.
My father had lost his own father when he was six. His mom remarried, then died within a year and left him alone with a step-dad who took him out of school and enslaved him dawn and dusk on a farm and then sent him to work in a brick factory through the day. His step-father’s razor strap left as many wounds on my father’s body as his tongue left on my father’s soul. He had learned and earned his anger and he likely would have perished if his grandmother hadn’t stepped in to rescue him from the carnage.
It was my father’s grandmother which first showed my father what the love of Jesus could look like. The rage that consumed my father inwardly was tempered until things didn’t go his way. The wounds and scars healed slowly for him even as they grew bigger for me. I learned two things to survive. Run fast and answer gently.
Standing on the crest of this mountain, I quoted the verse that my Sunday School teacher had taught me early. “A gentle answer turns away wrath.” Sometimes the proverb worked. I tried it while being bullied at school and it only invited further humiliation. I tried it at the warehouse and it only invited further taunting. I tried it with the senior next door, after she was unhappy with the way I’d cut her lawn, and it worked like a charm. She invited me in for a coke and cookies.
It wasn’t only Mother’s Day that brought me up here. There was a girl I’d noticed. She was as gorgeous as a summer daisy swaying in the breeze and just as fragile. I’d seen the terror in a woman’s eyes after my step-dad remarried. That flouncy blond found herself the target after trying to stop the strap from destroying me one more time. I can’t imagine what she faced after my grandmother pulled me out of there.
There was no way I wanted any woman brave enough to have me to wrestle with unchecked rage. I needed to deal with this lava at my core. I regurgitated some of the advice I’d been given over the years by friends and counselors. Take a deep breath before you speak. Think before you speak so you don’t say something you’ll regret. Get some exercise. Wait until you’re calm before expressing yourself. Take a timeout. Stick with “I” statements. Use humor to ease the tension.
A new thought hit me standing there.
Gentleness is strength under control. I’d seen a wild stallion gentled as the fear left its eyes. I needed to release my fear and open my trust to the one who knew how to care for me.
The sun was kissing the horizon when I got off my knees. The gentle breezes had blown into my soul and left me in peace. I’d left my hands opened as I stretched out before the one who understood the wrath of men. I’d heard the message. “You are loved.” A gentle answer had turned away my wrath.
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Excellent writing.
Blessings~