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Are you still with me?
Those
of you who have read the Adventures of ozEkoala will be partially desensitised to my ways,
and may hardly have noticed all the detours and false starts, but for new readers, it
might have come as a bit of a rude shock. Perhaps an explanation is in order.
I have what is commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and my worst symptom, apart
from crippling fatigue, is brain fog. This causes me to feel like my head is tightly
packed with cotton wadding and I am rendered incapable of clear, methodical thought
processing. Consequently, when I sit down to type I really have no idea what I am
going to say. Planning is impossible and spontaneity is the result. That's a
kind way of saying it can become a bit chaotic trying to follow my train of thought...but
we do usually get somewhere in the end.
Now, where was
I? Or where weren't we, when we should have been? Anyway, whatever...
let's try again.
Once upon a time,
there was a little girl named Beverley, and she was heading off for her first day of
school. She was pretty excited, but also a bit scared. Her brother and sister
were still attending the same primary school as she was starting, so they headed off
together across the road, where the school was situated. In the two minutes it took
to walk there, her siblings had managed to shake her off. So there she was, all
alone, facing the prospect of her very first day as a big school girl. Up until that
time she had attended the pre-school kindergarten at which her mother was the
Director. She was admired for her maturity and the way she didn't play on the fact
that her mother was the Boss. Today was different. Even though she hadn't
needed Mum at kindy, she wouldn't even be there if she did need her now. She felt
very small and very alone. She felt like crying. But you know what? She
didn't cry. If she had it would have been quite understandable, don't you
think? She was only five years old. Somewhere within her she decided it was
pointless to cry, even before the tears began to roll down her cheeks. Somewhere in
her little five-year old brain there was a lie, but she didn't know it was a lie... it
sounded true to her. The lie was that no-one was there to help her, so she would
just have to be strong and rely on her own resources to 'survive' in this life.
Does that sound a
bit complex for a five-year old to you? Well, when God reminded me of this incident
twenty-five years later, I actually felt like I was there again. I felt like a five
year old, I cried like a five year old... perhaps for a moment I connected with the part
of me that was there that day. And I realised that throughout my life I had held onto that
lie as a lifeline... all the time thinking it was true. But all the time it was a
lie. And do you know why? Because Jesus was there to help me, I just didn't
know it yet.
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The lie was that
no-one was there to help her,
so she would just have to be strong and rely on her own resources to 'survive' in this
life.
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