A little while ago, Mark and I got the chance to go on a short grocery shopping/Subway "date" while the kids were occupied elsewhere. As we walked into Subway, I noticed a man standing in line, and I turned my back toward the man in line (my front toward Mark) and whispered, "Oh! Do you see that guy in line in front of us? I had such a crush on that guy in high school." He raised an eyebrow and proceeded to check the guy out. Admittedly, the guy had seen better days (not to mention, so have I), but he had his pony tail wrapped up under a baseball cap and wore all black... a little chubbier, a little slouchier, but doubtless the same guy I remembered from some nearly 20 years ago now. (Even as I say things like "nearly 20 years ago now, I feel I can almost hear the rattle of false teeth in the bottom of a glass of denture cleaner and get a faint whiff of rubber mixed with heated felt from the tennis balls that will be on the back two legs of my walker, but I digress.) When I was a freshman, not to mention "jail bait", I liked the depressed, brooding, mysterious types. He was in a band, and I think he played bass guitar. I've never been the girl to like the drummer. Too...
And I'm soooo not the lead singer type either. Too...
Yeah, I always liked the guy in the background - quiet, unassuming, yet adding an invaluable contribution to any band - sweat and a pained look on his face (but not quite as pained as everyone else). Ah, yes. I was 15, and he was probably 20, but I didn't care. He had angst.
Never mind all that. These days I'm totally into THESE TYPES of guys.
As we waited in line, and Mark maneuvered himself between me and my ex-crush (who, incidentally, probably barely knew I existed at the time) so that we did not see one another, I was endeared, once again, to my strong, handsome, and just a tiny bit jealous and protective man.
When we brought the kids home from church later that night, Claire (8 years old) followed me into the room where I was dressing the toddlers for bed. She whispered, "Mom, all the girls at Awana like Austin." Then she confided that her older sister Sadie (10 years old) was being slightly opportunistic about these school-girl crushes and using the phrase, "Well, he's my brother," to make friends and win favor. Sadie has always thought the world of Austin, as this photo of the two of them at our wedding bears witness:
As well as this one from about 6 months later:
As Claire was confessing Sadie's plan to use her "brother" to make friends, Sadie entered the room. Let's say she is significantly less impressed with her brother than she was when he first entered our lives some 6 years ago now, but I guess she's a girl who seizes opportunity when she sees it. Sadie heard what we were discussing, and she said, "Yeah, it's true that they like him, but they don't know him like we do." Claire added, "Yeah, they think they know his ways, but we know his real ways." I had to smile at the sibling dynamics that have come so far in 6 years, and I am so thankful that these days are mine to cherish. After all, it seems like only yesterday I had a 15-year-old crush on an older man, and now it's an almost 20-year-old, 15-year-old crush (if that makes sense to anyone but me), and these days my 15-year-old is having crushes of his own while little girls have crushes on him.
The things we think are good for us when we are young are so rarely the things that actually are good for us. I wonder if/when that ever changes. At what age do we magically become aware of what is truly good for us and want those same things? I have to admit that I was very unsure when the man who is now my husband entered my life that I would ever be very attracted to him. He was quiet and shy (I thought), and - quite honestly - too boring to be my type. Seeing and talking to him at first was the relational equivalent of taking vitamins or eating broccoli in that I knew he was good for me - even if my "wanter" wasn't there yet. Lo and behold, these several years later, and I can't imagine wanting another day without him. I remember telling my sister (when we were both single - during my divorced years), "Every 'love' I ever experienced started with fireworks and the strongest feelings of attraction, but they never worked. Maybe the kind of love that works starts with embers and grows into fireworks. After all, how can something that starts so strong have anywhere to go but downhill?" I didn't know it at the time, but in trying to encourage her to give the man who is now her husband of nearly 7 years a chance to make her happy, I inadvertently advised myself of something that would later push me into the kind of happiness I could never have imagined and will never deserve. The man I regarded as unworthy of my time pursued me, pushed past barriers, won over the hearts of my parents and my daughters, and grabbed my attention in a way no one else had tried to do.
Isaiah 53 talks about another type of "crushed": There was once a man who was unattractive - there was nothing in his form or features that would make us attracted to Him - not extraordinarily handsome or winsome, and, as a result, we did not esteem Him, but...
5He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
6 All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all
To [j]fall on Him.
7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
And as for His generation, who considered
That He was cut off out of the land of the living
For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?
9 His grave was assigned with wicked men,
Yet He was with a rich man in His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.
10 But the LORD was pleased
To crush Him, putting Him to grief;
If He would render Himself as a guilt offering,
He will see His offspring,
He will prolong His days,
And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.
11 As a result of the anguish of His soul,
He will see it and be satisfied;
By His knowledge the Righteous One,
My Servant, will justify the many,
As He will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great,
And He will divide the booty with the strong;
Because He poured out Himself to death,
And was numbered with the transgressors;
Yet He Himself bore the sin of many,
And interceded for the transgressors.
There was nothing in Christ that would cause fireworks to rise up within us... nothing that would make us desire Him, but the sparks that grew to embers that end up in fireworks come with the knowledge of what He endured to make us His own.
