MACE AND ANGELS
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I am not a social butterfly.
The thought of socializing with strangers or even with large groups of acquaintances used to make me break out in hives and—at its worst—caused what commercials might refer to as “intestinal discomfort.”
Socializing still causes some tossing-and-turning loss of sleep, but I’m improving. Really, I am. Case in point:
I headed out to a women’s gathering at Blanchard Alliance Church last night. Had I ever been there before? No. Had I ever met my hostess, who knew my mom when said mom was a mere child? No. Was I all excited at the thought of meeting a roomful of strangers? No. But I was hopeful. I’m in a new phase, you see, and prodding myself over new hurdles with the whip of determination and the spurs of “potential positive outcome” is a daily endeavor as I navigate this bright and shiny (albeit maybe temporary) new life.
My concerns over last evening’s get-together were entirely unfounded. My hostess, Bev, is the kindest and most authentic woman, and the ladies at the gathering were welcoming and warm. I was feeling good about my choice to attend…and then the Miracle-Giver Himself stepped in to make of this “hurdle” a God-appointed encounter. Sitting in the last row of the church basement was Miss Scribner, age 80’ish, and as I looked across at her, I realized with stunning clarity how this woman I haven’t seen in 20 years had influenced my life.
(Sorry for the repeat-photo…) Let me back up a little. I’m a student at Wheaton College—an unhappy, hate-the-world college student blaming my attitude on the inferiority of everyone I DIDN’T meet while exercising my right to NOT socialize. Part of that was the MK mentality (still sadly prevalent in some parts of our subculture), and part of it, the greater part, was the stranglehold my own “victimhood” had on me. At the time, I hadn’t acknowledged or dealt with it, but it still motivated a self-destructive mindset and fueled a self-imposed seclusion I blamed on others.
I got through college in 3 1/2 years. You couldn’t have paid me enough to stick it out for another semester! And it was toward the beginning of my junior year that I realized that I’d taken none of the three Phys Ed classes required for graduation. Argh. I wasn’t about to squeeze myself, bratwurst-style, into a bathing suit and there was “no way in Wheaton” anyone was going to force me into something that would actually cause me to get in shape. Shape = sweat. I’m not a fan of the latter. So I scoured the course catalog for a suitable selection of unwanted classes and came up with this: Nutrition, bowling, and self-defense. Done, done and done.
Enter Miss Scribner. My first self-defense class was daunting, but also a little fascinating, mostly because of the cement-meets-cinnamon-roll personality of my instructor—a single woman “of a certain age” who managed the impossible combination of warmth and rigor, and who decked out football-type guys in protective gear, then instructed us to “hit them where it hurts” while screaming like baby pigs. But she prefaced each class with real-life stories of angels guarding us and laced into her instruction her ironclad certainty that women are valuable in God’s eyes and that resisting assault was what He wanted from us.
When I met Miss Scribner again last night, I knew I wouldn’t be able to reveal the full scope of her influence on my life without losing my composure, so I promised to write her a note and explain myself more fully. I guess this is my note…
As many of you know (and most of you have surmised from these blog posts), I am the survivor of multiple forms of abuse. Part of what I’ve endured was sanctioned by a French school system that still believes that a little bit of persecution is good for the soul. Part of it was at the hands of strangers. And part of it was dispensed by people close to me. But I grew up a shy little girl who believed that grown-ups never did wrong and that talking about things would only make them worse. Hence the basket case I was when I began college.
Miss Scribner’s self-defense syllabus didn’t list “life changing empowerment” as one of its goals, but it achieved it nonetheless, though it took me several more years to find the courage to live as she had urged me to. Basic tenets of her instruction, applicable to so, SO many areas of our lives:
Jesus. I vividly remember the day we talked about strategies to employ if we were facing imminent attack. The first line of defense? Scream the name of Jesus. I can’t remember now what the statistics are, but the number of attackers who turn and run at the name of Jesus is staggering. I’ve discovered since my college years that the assaults of fear, anguish, uncertainty, anger and despair can be combated in exactly the same way. In whispering or screaming and wailing “Jesus.” I did so while lying in bed in the middle of the night, hours after discovering that I had breast cancer. I did it when some of my closest friends went through unimaginable trauma a few months ago. Screaming the name of Jesus didn’t alter the circumstances—it altered the focus of my soul and the emotions gripping my heart. What power there is in that name!
Angels. Miss Scribner began each class by reading stories of people trapped in hopeless circumstances who saw and experienced God’s presence through angels He sent to protect them. Lesson: we are never, NEVER alone. Sometimes, He sends angels to guard us. Sometimes He wraps us in His peace despite untenable circumstances. Sometimes He whispers portions of His Word to us when nothing else can reach into our grief. Sometimes He sends people—flesh and blood envoys who knowingly or unknowingly speak peace and healing to us. God is there, His courage and power ours to borrow when human strength and perspective deem a situation lost. Miss Scribner’s purpose wasn’t just to prove that angels exist in many forms, it was to train us to LOOK FOR THEM in our darkest hour. I still do that today—that’s how I recognized her last night…
Fortitude. The first instance of abuse in my life came around the age of 5. Others accumulated until the age of 17. The emotional, spiritual and relational tsunami caused by those destructive assaults lasted until I was 27. Not once in all those years did I think of fighting back. Not once. I was taught that little girls were respectful to grown-ups and never tattle-taled on their friends. And I was utterly convinced of my worthlessness—what was there to stand up for and protect? Just me. And “me” wasn’t worthy. The most life-changing moment of my adult life came about 3 years after Miss Scribner’s class, when I finally found the courage to stand up to one of my abusers, to dare to challenge, to dare to denounce, to dare to protect. In that case, it was another potential victim I was “saving” (becoming, unaware, one of the angels God sent for that purpose), but it was a turning point. Because I realized that standing up and resisting, that pointing my finger and naming the sin, stopped that aggressor in his tracks. And if I had the courage to do so for this other wounded creature, I might even find the courage to do it for myself… It took loving myself as God loves me and finally believing that resistance is what my Savior wanted from me.
I hope—I PRAY—I’m making some sort of sense. I so firmly believe that these three Scribner Lessons apply to every challenge we face in life. What a different person I would be if I remembered daily to counteract every attack, large or small, by seeking God’s presence in the midst of it, saying the name of Jesus, and claiming the fortitude to stand up and fight.
Our final exam, back in 1989, was to break a one-inch board with a bare-handed karate chop. Miss Scribner signed the board and sent it home with me after I broke it. I still have it. And I occasionally bring it out of its storage box to prove to teenage boys that messing with Miss Phi could have disastrous consequences. Oh, the joy of seeing their eyes widen! But that broken board is more to me than a testament to whatever physical and mental strength it took to split it. It means “Jesus, angels and fortitude”…whatever the context. And it reminds me that even in my darkest moment, when life was a painful drudgery I yearned to escape, God spoke, empowered and healed through an angel called Marilyn Scribner.
(PS: There is much to be discussed on the topic of “fairness” when it comes to life’s traumas. Why do some get angels to prevent harm happening to them and why do others suffer with no interference from Higher Spheres? I don’t mean to minimize any of the far-reaching debates about God’s sovereignty, protection, etc., with this post. These three Scribner Lessons are basic life skills from which each of us can profit, regardless of our understanding of the more complex aspects of the “bad things to good people” dilemma. I may get into my own conclusions on that topic in a future post…)