Letting go . . .

There’s an old joke I like to tell. Especially at men’s prayer because, let’s be honest about it, it’s a little jarring. It puts Jesus in the last place we’d expect to see him. But I like to tell it because it illustrates that some people will hold on to things because it defines them as a human being. And they’ll hold onto it, no matter what.

So here goes . . .

This guy who’s hard of hearing walks into a bar (see, good already) and sits down. As he looks around, he notices a familiar face at the end of the bar. So, he motions over the bartender and asks, “Is that who I think it is?”

“Yes,” the bartender says. “That’s Jesus.”

So he sends a beer down to the Lord. A few minutes later a woman who has Parkinson’s come in. She see’s Jesus and does the same thing.

Then a man who lost the use of his hand in an accident comes in. He sees Jesus and sends down a beer.

After a few minutes, Jesus stands up and says, “You’ve all  been very kind. Let me do something for you.”

He touched the first guys ears, and his hearing is restored. He can hear birds outside, and people talking out in the street. He’s amazed.

Jesus then turns to the lady, touches her head and tells her to be healed. Her trembling stops, and she finds she has control over her body once again, control she thought she’d lost.

Jesus turns to the man with the bad hand. The guy backs away, holds up his hand, and says, “Don’t touch me, man.  I’m getting disability!”

I know, bad joke.

But having talked about PTSD, I got to wondering how many people hang on to their injuries so to speak because it defines who they are. In short, have we allowed ourselves to become professional victims because of our past. Let’s be honest here. Some of us have had terrible things happen to us. Those terrible things have locked us into a cage with our fear and our hurt to keep us company.

Some of us have just plain screwed up. We’ve made mistakes, and it looks like we’re condemned to be on the trash heap of life.

We find ourselves in either the dump or in a cage.

The question becomes, how long do we want to stay in either. There’s a road that leads out the dump, and if you find yourself in a cage, you’ve got the key. Either way, you either have to start walking or use the key.

Both require courage. And sometimes that courage is found in anger when someone tells us the truth.

So here goes. I think I’ve said this before. If I did, I’m over sixty and part of the fun of being that old is you can tell the same story and it’s new to you every day.

PTSD can you lead you into a pit of depression. The first time I was injured in the line of duty, I found myself right there. I couldn’t sleep, I was afraid, and I wasn’t sure if being a police officer is what I wanted out of life. I went to the police academy and bombed out. Remember, I have an IQ that way up there, took a degree in a very difficult field, and going through the police academy was the maiden voyage of the Titanic. I could no longer be a police officer. It took me a couple of months to decide to trt something else.

It would be safe to say that during that couple of months, I was damn near homeless. I slept mostly on friends’ couches or on a floor someplace. Seeing that wasn’t working for me, I enlisted in the Air Force. If the Academy was a failing, this was a disaster on an epic scale. I was reliving that injury over and over. I finally had an Air Force doctor tell me that I had too many ghosts to deal with, and I was discharged.

So now I’m a FAILURE in big, bold letters. And don’t you think I wasn’t thinking like that.

So one day, I run into a cousin of mine. He didn’t have a kind word to say to me, and instead told me how disappointed he was in me. When he walked away, I looked at his retreating back, and anger took over. I was so mad, I was actually shaking with rage.

People often wonder what it sounds like when God talks to you. Is it a booming voice from the sky or, as Elijah heard, a still small voice. I don’t know if it was God speaking to me, but it was like I heard something ask, “Are you angry at him because you like where you’re at in life, or because he told you the truth?”

I stood there. I’d been out walking when I ran into him, and I found myself both literally and figuratively at a crossroads in my life. Did I keep letting an injury define me, or was I going to do something about it?

So, I did something about it. I found out that I still had enough points at the Academy that I could retake the final test and, if I passed it, I would get my certification as a police officer. I got on with my local Sheriff’s Office and did just that.

So what did I learn from it.

1: Don’t ever let a failure or an injury define you. Someone once told me that God is so big, you can’t put Him in a box. Well, the Bible tells us we’re made in His image, and if that’s the case, then we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be put in a box.

2: The only one that can put us in a box is us. People may try, but you don’t have to live in it.

3: We make the box. It’s built out of fear and confusion.

4: We have the key and the map to get out.

5: Talk about your failures. Chances are your triumphs are built on failure. An old military saying goes something like many a battle has been fought and won by a commander who’s either too stubborn or to stupid to know they were beat. Keep going, and never quit.

6: Talking makes things ease. I have to thank JR Madrid and all the riding around on patrol, and all the cigars we smoked (surprised neither one of us ever came down with lung cancer). Talking things out renders failures powerless.

7: If you decide to let things go, don’t pick them up again. Like the guy in the joke, if you want a healing don’t hang onto whatever it was.

8: God had bigger shoulders than you do. Jesus said to cast all your cares on him. He also told us to take up His yoke, that’s it’s light. Back in the old days when we had cattle or horses pulling carts, the stronger animal always did the most work. Same with Jesus. He’s stronger than you are, so let Him have the load.

Hope it helps.