The Walking Stick Journal

Stepping Stones of Transformation

 

An Unfolding Manuscript

by

C. D. Baker

 

Chapter Sixteen: Jesus Did It Too

 

Something powerful happens when we recognize that we are not the only one. And that ‘something’ is easier experienced than understood. 

 

***   

Winter 2022

Drove to Bill’s today with five pages of notes. I’ve spent weeks grieving losses but now this. Evil and death just seem to be everywhere and I can’t figure out where God is. I’m left guessing that evil may not be so much an equation to be solved but a story to be resolved. 

And I can’t resolve it.

My bad ear is driving me nuts, am chronically exhausted, and highly stressed. Had to help pull a dead calf from its bellowing mother last week. I couldn’t help but dwell on depressing metaphors from that. But nothing compares to the darkness of this week. I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with any of it. Almost turned around.

 

***   

“Come on in, David. Sorry if it’s a little cold in here.”

I shake Bill’s hand and drop into my usual black leather chair by the window. The street outside is slushy grey grit, and that’s how I feel.

“So, how are you today?”

I stare at my notes, then put them down. “Three nights ago I stood by two sisters-in-law alongside my brother-in-law, Kit, who was on a ventilator in the Covid wing.”

Bill falters. “I’m…so sorry…”

“I tried to be a comforting presence with some prayers and Bible passages. But my words felt so hollow. The hospital was like a haunted tomb.” I look away. “His wife then needed to make the hard call, and so we left to give her and Kit their last moments.” I tear up.

Bill and I sit silently for a long moment.

“I’m glad you were there for them,” says Bill.

I wipe my eyes, still feeling like such a fraud. “I was trying hard to help, but inside I was triggered. None of this is about me, but death terrifies me. Super Christian, right? I was anxious and shaky. Right on the edge of panic.”

“Traumatized.”

I shrug. “It was terrible and terrifying, but I wanted so badly to be a comfort. Kit’s wife was so brave…his sister so strong…”

Bill pauses. “Your love overcame your fears so you could be there for them.”

A snowplow runs along the street below my window. I don’t think I overcame anything.

 

***   

“I hope you’re finding some peace,” says Bill as we take our seats.

It’s two weeks later and I’m still not sure how to answer. “I once had a family member whom I had to inform of some serious medical attention he’d need. He glared at me with dead eyes and said, ‘Not me!’ I recoiled from his arrogance.”

Bill waits as I shift in my chair.

“The truth is that’s been me my whole life. Other people get sick and die, but I think, ‘not me.’ What a pathetic denial.”

“It’s fear talking.” Bill’s tone is comforting. “We all want to say, ‘Not me.'” He pauses. “Think of the contrast to Jesus saying, ‘Yes, me.'”

My sigh signals my disinterest in Jesus right now. 

Bill nods. “I understand how hard it was for you to be there for Kit and the sisters.”

“I tried, but…”

“You don’t even hear it, do you?” 

We both wait.

“I offered you something and you dismissed it. You try so hard to comfort others, but you refuse comfort for yourself.”

I stiffen. “It was the right thing to do and I don’t need any applause.”

Bill draws a long breath through his nose. “Comfort isn’t applause.”

“Feels like it, and I don’t need it.”

“So, you’re own version of ‘not me.'” Bill sets his face. “You are an abuser of yourself. You’re the ghost of that old voice and you refuse to see it.”

I lock my jaw. I’m tempted to cut this short.

He presses. “What you are saying is, ‘I’m better than that; I’m in control; I’m fine.’ You think that denying the need for comfort somehow means you’re safe.”

I look away. Is he right?

“We both know that the ultimate loss of control is death. That’s why the experience in the hospital with your family was so traumatizing.” Bill crosses his leg. “And that’s why you get so anxious about medical tests, and even the passing of time.”

My jaw is clenched.

“You run scenarios and are always asking, ‘What if?’ It’s an obsessive misery for you.”

He’s right about that.

“All of this is self-harm driven by fear. You are desperate to prepare for any possible outcome so you run to Google to read up on worst case scenarios…”

“I get it.”

“Do you? Your shadow self is in full operation right now. It doesn’t want to let go of controlling you.”

My face is now fixed on the window to my left.

Bill releases a breath and softens. “David, do you appreciate the true-you that’s trying to emerge?” He pauses, then says, “You’re at the point of needing to decide who you are becoming.”

I look at Bill and realize how hard he has worked for my well-being. It’s just that I can’t seem to break through all this. My shoulders sag. “I can’t shake the fear.”

Bill nods. “I know.”

My eye twitches and I turn toward my window once again. An unexpected awareness then hits me from nowhere: Jesus was afraid, too. So afraid that he begged his Father to save him from suffering and death. 

But he went through it, anyway.

I feel a weird relief in that and don’t know exactly why. I sit with it for a long moment as the thought of Jesus going through somehow warms me. I turn my head toward Bill. “Jesus did it too.”

Eyebrows up, Bill waits.

“Jesus was afraid, like me. And he went through death.” I say the words slowly, deliberately; they were somehow comforting. “It was like he just now said to me, ‘I was afraid, too, David. I died… and it’s all going to be okay.”