Eason family stories are the best. At least I think so. And so did three precious children I used to keep. Especially the ones about my dad and unfortunate events… like the time he got locked in a train bathroom and broke his ring and pocket knife trying to free himself, or the day birds chased him down our rocky driveway when all he was trying to do was rescue their baby.
But we don’t have time for all of those, so I’m going to sum up most of the early parts of my life by saying for the most part I would describe my childhood like a Leave it to Beaver episode. It was pretty black and white and pretty ideal and everything got worked out in 30 minutes or less. We were happy. If anyone could grow up with few bumps in the road ahead, it should have been me. But don’t you know that rarely happens…
I made some incredibly terrible choices in my early 20s that left horrible scars that I grieved…
and grieved…
and grieved.
If you’ve ever really destroyed your life than perhaps you know what I’m talking about. I was lost and felt alone, like no one knew me and I wanted to keep it that way even while at the same time I really wanted someone to enter into my reality and tell me life would still work out okay. I questioned everything about my future and worried that I had ruined all the things I’d hoped for my whole life. Though my theology would have disagreed, practically, I felt betrayed by God. I was so disappointed in Him and angered that I was miserable and that He wasn’t fixing anything I had destroyed. I wanted to know where grace was because at the time it seemed to be the furthest thing from my life.
Eventually fear and shame took over anger. I lived in a prison for years that no one could see because the walls were invisible, but I was in it none the less, chained to fear and doubt and the certainty that if I uncovered all of the things that were true about me, rejection was imminent. Even writing these things, I can remember how much I hated my life during these days.
I remember during the summer of 2005 driving on Glenwood Avenue and begging God to let me die. I remember specifically asking that a truck would take my car out. I could not imagine the rest of my life or find any hope that it could be put back together.
As I rounded the corner to go to my parents’ house, my sister’s body came to mind. She was pregnant with my niece Brooklynn at the time and I remember hearing the words “Carrie, you can’t see that baby, you don’t know what she will look like, but she is there. The signs of life are there. Hold on.”
I’m not sure I even recognized it at the time, but now I can see grace, grace, grace… someone was speaking to me in desperate moments.
Later, I had a dream in which I was in my grandparents’ house and my grandfather who had died pulled up in his old green truck. In my dream he got out of his truck and met me on their back deck. All he said was, “Sam bone (he had a nick name for everyone) you aren’t dead yet!” and then I woke up.
The act of remembering for me begins here: when I was without hope and wanted to die, there was hope. When I felt like I was alone, I wasn’t. All the things I believed about myself and my future and my life are not true today. I am so grateful that I was kept alive that year and so thankful that the darkness that ruled my world is gone. It was a process, and there were some dark days, but looking back they were fleeting.
I hope I always remember that I am not dead yet, and even when I can’t see how or why or when God makes all things work together, He does… that my life is pregnant with things I cannot see, but would never, ever want to miss. There is a seven year old little girl whose face I know and whose personality I love… all the ways that she changes and grows reminds me of how far we’ve come from that day when all I knew of her was the promise of life and the hope it gave to me to hold fast.
These things were a beginning for me of understanding the sovereign hand of God…. and should darkness and suffering like that ever come again I want to remember the One who speaks and holds onto me forever.
