Choosing to SEE - Mary Beth Chapman [77]
“Yes,” she said. “Will would always play with us.”
“Is it a true statement that you yelled for Maria to stop running toward Will’s car?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And is it a true statement that Maria was little Miss Stubborn and she just kept running toward the car anyway?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said.
But guilt is not easily defeated by mere logic.
Dr. Lois brought Shaoey into her office and asked her to pick a figure that represented her guilt from one of the shelves. Dr. Lois’s shelves have everything from fairy princesses to lions, tigers, bears, crowns, swords, monsters, good guys, bad guys, you name it.
Shaoey reluctantly began to look at all the figures, not sure of what she was about to do. Finally she chose a gnarly old grim reaper skeleton guy. “This is my guilt,” she said. “This is what it would look like.”
“Okay,” said Dr. Lois. “This is the devil. I want to tell you something, Shaoey. In these rooms with me you’re allowed to say things that you shouldn’t say at home or school or church. You can tell him to shut up, or whatever you want.”
Shaoey was surprised and decided this might just be a fun thing after all.
But as she dealt with the gnarly devil guy, she began to get upset. “You shut up!” she yelled. “You get away from me and leave me alone! Stop saying things to me! Shut up! ”
Together, Shaoey and Dr. Lois beat up the devil guy some more, and then they put him in a coffin in a box. They buried the box in the sand.
“When did your guilt begin?” Dr. Lois asked.
“May 21, 2008,” said Shaoey. They wrote that date on a note they put in the box.
“And when does your guilt end?” Dr. Lois asked.
“Today!” Shaoey yelled. They put the date on a note and placed that in the box. Then they closed the lid and wrote Romans 8:1 on the top: “There is therefore now no guilt for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
“Okay, Shaoey,” Dr. Lois said. “Now find something on the shelves that represents Jesus.”
Shaoey looked around for a while and then chose a crown that had diamonds on it. Together, they put the crown on top of the box, and Dr. Lois stored it high on a shelf. That way, just in case the devil guy of guilt started bugging Shaoey again, they could get him out, yell at him, and then re-bury him, reclaiming Jesus’ absolute victory over him.
Jesus’ victory is absolute, but many of our days are still difficult. One day both Shaoey and Stevey Joy were very sad, both of them crying for Maria.
“Mom, why is it just so hard living without Maria?” Stevey Joy asked.
I sat down with them.
“Yes,” I said. “This is so hard! It stinks! It’s the worst! It’s so hard to live without Maria’s giggles, snorts, slobber, and all the funny stuff she used to say!”
Tears rolled down my cheeks as my little girls continued to cry.“ It’s not fair, I know!” I said. “There are lots of things that don’t seem to be fair, and they’re so hard. But girls, God has asked us to do hard. It really stinks and I wish we didn’t have to, but this is what our family has been called to. If we all stick together, we can do hard.”
31
The Unhappiest Place
on Earth
Christianity doesn’t deny the reality of suffering and evil.
. . . Our hope . . . is not based on the idea that we are
going to be free of pain and suffering. Rather, it is based
on the conviction that we will triumph over suffering.
Brennan Manning
What if we all got brave?
Enough to take away
All we’re hiding behind even just for a day
And let the scars show even a little
But I know the honesty will show us all to be
Broken, we’re all broken
And we all need a Savior
Broken, we’re all broken
And we all need a Savior
We all have a Savior
We all need Jesus
“Broken”
Words and music by Steven Curtis Chapman
As the sad, numb summer of 2008 unrolled, our various counselors told us it would be a good idea to make some new memories as a family. I could hardly get myself up in the morning, and the thought of a trip without Maria didn’t help my deep grief.
But again, I was