Day Four

This story is one of my most difficult experiences throughout my Blue Monarch journey. I can’t remember another time when I have been so angry with God – so infuriated that I didn’t care what he had to say. But he found a method to speak to me anyway, in a way that I would listen, which illustrates his tremendous patience and grace.

“Sign language is all I can hear right now.”

“What’s happened to you since I saw you last? You’ve been grinding your teeth!” The dental hygienist went on to say the damage I had done to my teeth would ordinarily take ten to twenty years to happen on its own.

Great. Just one more reason to be mad at “It.”

“It” was something that had turned our world upside down. Like a thick, dark, evil liquid, “It” had permeated every single aspect of what we do at Blue Monarch. Not one thing had gone untouched.

“It” reared its ugly head on March 13th of 2019. As I was leaving a board meeting that evening, I called Jeannie before I drove out of the parking lot. I had a strange feeling that something with her wasn’t quite right. In fact, for a couple of weeks, every time I looked at Jeannie, I saw a vision of her fading off into the distance. It was strange, and I didn’t know what it could mean. It gave me an uneasy feeling, so I never mentioned it to her.

“Did everything go okay today while I was at the board meeting?”

Jeannie is our amazing Program Director. She came to our program with her three little girls in 2003 as one of our very first families. She left after only six months, which ultimately led to four years in prison. Yet, years later she became a key figure in our Blue Monarch leadership. She is woven through the very fabric of what we do.

“Yeah, everything was good.”

I was still confused by the feeling I had, so I asked about her girls, and she caught me up on how each daughter was doing. I hung up, still carrying a dark feeling in my heart that I could not explain.

Just a few hours after this conversation, shortly before 10:00 p.m., my phone rang and it’s a moment I will never forget. Jeannie screamed hysterically, “Carmen’s been shot! Please pray!” Her daughter, Carmen, had turned eighteen just a few weeks before. Right away, an image of Carmen as a rowdy toddler flashed through my mind.

I immediately threw on some clothes and grabbed my purse on the way out the door. “Please Lord, no! Please don’t let this happen! Please!” Right away it felt like an evil attack.

Shortly before I walked into the hospital, I learned Carmen had not survived. I think at that moment my heart went hard. I was angry. Angry with the person who did this. Angry with the people who do things like this all the time. And most of all – angry with God for letting this happen to the sweetest person I know.

When I found Jeannie, she was a puddle of grief, suffering from every parent’s greatest fear. We cried like babies, and I think it was at that moment that I became spiritually deaf. I had no interest in anything God had to say from that point on because I was so angry with him. Why didn’t he stop that bullet before it struck Carmen’s beautiful face? After all, we know he could have.

It was shocking. Jeannie had brought many people to know Christ. She had touched so many lives in powerful ways – not only through her job at Blue Monarch but through her volunteer work in prison ministry too. She had served God well, so why didn’t he protect her? I found myself trying to come up with some divine reason for what had happened – but the truth was, it just stunk. I decided right then and there that “Why did this happen to Carmen?” would be the first thing I asked when I entered the gates of heaven - right before “Where did you come from?” which was, until then, my first question.

As I sat in the church at Carmen’s funeral a few days later, I listened to all the crying and suffering from across the sanctuary. It struck me how one person’s actions could cause so much pain for so many people.

This tragic event had a profound effect on our entire program. The residents we serve could make no sense of what had happened. If this could happen to Jeannie, then none of us were safe! They were also angry with God, and it manifested itself in ugly ways. They resented those of us trying to fill the gap in Jeannie’s absence. They no longer trusted us – how could they? After all, they no longer trusted God, either. As a group, they became belligerent, bitter, uncooperative, and even disrespectful. The world felt completely out of sync.

Nevertheless, our staff members carried heavy hearts into everything they did to keep the ball rolling until Jeannie could come back. We struggled to have patience with our residents while we dealt with our grief at the same time. We tried to do our jobs and raise money with enthusiasm – but it’s hard to do with a broken heart. Yep, “It” had touched every single aspect of our organization. The ripple effect was endless.

For weeks I kept my ears shut and refused to hear anything God had to say. It was like that annoying, outdated phrase, “Talk to the hand.” Don’t talk to me. My anger only got more intense as I walked alongside Jeannie over the following weeks - meeting with the detectives, reading the dreadful 911 report, seeing the photo of Carmen’s face after she had been shot between the eyes, attending the bond hearing for the one charged with Carmen’s death, all while watching Jeannie’s heart just crumble day after day.

It was as if the only place that brought comfort was to go back to the moment before “It” happened. Many times, I wanted to take Jeannie’s pain for a day so she could just get some relief. Too bad we couldn’t sign up for shifts – the way people sign up to bring food. “I’ll take Tuesday if you can take Wednesday.”

But what I saw over the next few months was nothing less than a miracle.

Jeannie’s relationship with Jesus only got stronger through this tragedy, even though she still had lots of questions of her own. Her personal story became even more powerful as she described “leaning in on Jesus and pulling from the heavenly bank we have as God’s children.” She met with our residents, one-on-one, and tenderly listened as they shared their doubts and fears with her. She wept with them as they shared her pain.

I watched her come to work determined to serve, even on her heaviest days. Jeannie has proved to our residents that one can experience even the worst pain without turning to drugs as a way to cope. She taught them to cling to Jesus instead. They will forever remember her example of faith and strength, long after leaving Blue Monarch. They may even share her story with their children one day. In other words, I saw Jeannie bring her brightest light to Blue Monarch – even in her darkest hour.

As we gradually got back on our feet, I came to realize, the ripple effect of “It” was not endless after all. Once it touched the people it was going to hurt, it was finished. And if justice was done, there would be no more. So, its power was very limited.

But the impact of Jeannie’s story and Carmen’s life will truly be endless. Jeannie has touched more people in beautiful ways, than “It” did in harmful ways. In the same way that one sunflower can produce up to 2,000 seeds, I believe with every life Jeannie touches she will be planting many more seeds along the way, which IS endless.

And this is what finally hit me. Even while I was stomping around clinching my teeth and refusing to listen to God, he was speaking to me the whole time. You see, he was saying some pretty powerful things to me through my friend, Jeannie. Guess God knew that sign language was the only thing I could hear for a while, so I’m glad my eyes were open, even if my ears were not. Who knew that his voice would be such a beautiful thing to see?

Prayer:

Dear Lord, thank you for gently showing me grace, even when I am angry with you. Amen

Personal challenges and reflection:

• Has there been a time when you have been angry with God? How did you handle that?
• Can you describe a time when God spoke to you through the actions of others, even when you were unwilling to listen to him?
• Do you feel comfortable expressing your anger with God? How do you think he receives that?
• Can you think of a time when you struggled with why God would allow something bad to happen to someone you love? Have you asked God to help you understand it?
• Describe a time when you have been inspired by the strength of someone who was hurting. How can you have that same strength?