By: Mike Kelly
Retired Pastor
Let’s talk about chaos. I’d just turned 20 when I proposed to the woman who would become my wife some 12 weeks later.
In those days, women could marry at 18 but men had to be 21 to get married without their parent’s consent in Missouri. My mother refused to sign off.
She liked another girl I had briefly dated better than the one to whom I had proposed. Ultimately, I think she gave in because her new husband wanted me out of the house. I may not have been too nice to him. Just sayin’.
My wife’s situation was even worse. Although she didn’t need her parents’ consent, they made their displeasure quite well known. They asked her (read: “told her”) to move out now!
So, we started off with an unhappy mother and very unhappy parents. We didn’t even know if they would show up at the wedding. As it turned out, everyone came.
Were we too young as my mom said or mismatched (Irish Catholic boy, Baptist girl) as her parents thought? Maybe.
I worked full-time and was a full-time sophomore in college and she worked full-time. We felt mature and were actually financially OK in a paycheck-to-paycheck sort of way. For a month!
Then, on the exact four-week anniversary of our wedding, chaos struck again. We woke to a fire in our apartment. A grease fire got out of hand. Fortunately, no one was injured but four families were displaced.
We lost everything! And I do mean everything. We saved the pants I was wearing and the nightgown she was wearing and nothing else. Neighbors gave us coats and shoes to put on while we waited for the fire department. Later, our landlord gave us $80 to go buy some clothes at J.C. Penney.
Of course, this was all covered by renter’s insurance…NOT! Who even knew what that was?
As a good Catholic, I knew about Job but only in a surface sort of way. We didn’t lose family or suffer any other great disasters like him. But. I’ll admit, I didn’t respond like he did either.
None of this: Job 1:21 “When I was born into this world, I was naked and had nothing. When I die and leave this world, I will be naked and have nothing. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Praise the name of the Lord!”
My response was probably a little more “earthy” if you get my drift. I didn’t have Job’s understanding of God. What’s mine was mine. God didn’t lose everything in that fire, we did! My response to chaos was a few choice words somewhere between three and five letters.
We survived like most people do. We went into debt for new furniture and clothes. Went on with life, work, school and even had three kids.
And ultimately, eight years later, we bought our first house. Then proceed to try to burn it down as well.
Donna had just run to the corner store to buy something she’d forgotten for dinner. She turned off the burner on the stove where she was preparing to fix fried chicken.
But she turned the wrong burner off. Another grease fire. Smoke damage throughout the house and the kitchen was pretty much destroyed.
Our six-month old daughter was in her bed on the upper floor of the tri-level. Our five-year-old son noticed the fire and alerted our seven-year-old son and they both ran outside. That’s when the seven-year-old realized his baby sister was still in the burning house.
He ran back into the house and upstairs where he drug her out of her crib and brought her outside to safety. They were waiting for mom to return, safely sitting in the front yard.
Only, this time we had insurance but even more than that, we had a living, active faith. We could have lost it all like Job did but God spared us. And this time, there were no “choice” words but only great gratitude and praises to our savior.
Very similar situations but our base was different. In the first fire, we had faith in name only. By the second, our faith was real, and we knew that our God would turn this mess into a blessing.
None of us is spared seasons of chaos. (Did I mention that what looks chaotic to us is not chaotic to our Lord?) These events are actually growth events that among other things, help us see our progression in faith.
I think we know that we are maturing when we can honestly say with Job “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Where are you in your faith walk? And an even more important question…are you maturing, stuck or regressing in your faith journey?
PS: wish my wife a happy 57th anniversary if you see her.
———————–
Mike Kelly is the founding pastor of Bryan’s Grace Community Church (retired) and Board Chairman of Bryan’s Sanctuary Homeless Shelter and Williams County’s Compassion (free) Medical Clinic.
