High in the mountains of Montana, I played as a small child and searched through weeds and bushes to find bits of beauty and wonder to amuse myself with. My mother would frequently send me with dad whenever he went to work cutting timber there. The rise and fall of growling chainsaws became as familiar to me as a lullaby, and the smell of freshly cut wood became as cozy as an overstuffed chair might be for someone else. I quickly learned to stay away from the campfires where the men gathered to drink coffee and complain. They were as rough and hard as the falling trees.
On bad days, the boss sent dad back home because “This ain’t no place for kids!” But mama continued to send me with him for years.
Dad disliked me, and the fact that he lost the work that normally provided beer money for him lowered his opinion of me even more dramatically. I, too often, robbed him of those evenings he earnestly looked forward to of sitting in a knotty pine barroom with cigarette smoke and clanking glasses and those rough hard men that he worked with.
Mama continued to send me with him because she regarded me as a sinister little intruder that could rudely pry open secrets. She would sometimes glance at me and turn pale and mutter, “Linda has eyes that see souls!”
And so I collected purple clovers and wild strawberries and sticks to the background music of chainsaws. There were also wonderful moments when a miracle would appear in the form of a brilliant blue butterfly. They were glorious, magical creatures of supernal beauty! It was a truly awesome day when I could follow one through wildflowers and patches of mud to stay close before it flitted completely away. Unfortunately, my love came to an end the moment I came upon a pile of dung and found it covered with my blue butterflies.
I felt deceived. Cheated. I never again looked at one of those butterflies with anything other than feelings of betrayal. How could I have ever thought they were so beautiful?
Finding God in abuse is difficult because the pain and horror and walls of disbelief are so overwhelming that there is no logical place for God. But sometimes if we reflect back, we can find him there in the darkest of places and circumstances. If God was there, why did he not step in and stop the abuse? By letting go of what we think God should have done…if he loved us, we can mentally sort through evidence that he really was there weeping with us and for us. We can often uncover overwhelming evidence of love and careful tending that we overlooked because we were so focused on the ugliness.
Once I was playing beneath a barstool near my father when I was around four years old. Although I was aware that my father was talking to someone, I didn’t pay any attention until there was a dead silence and an ominous feeling in the air. “You can do whatever you want to with ‘er! I don’t give a damn!”
I glanced up first at my father who was laughing darkly and then at a semi-circle of men who were looking down at me. I didn’t know why they wanted to hurt me, I only knew they were going to hurt me because I was a girl. Fear pulled me into a numb confusion, and then a loud thought came to me. “Find the man with the soft eyes.”
I obediently searched each face until I found him. He had kind blue eyes and blond hair.
“Go take his hand.”
Fear had turned me into jelly, but I wobbled over to him and grabbed one of his hands with both of mine until he firmly pulled one of my hands into his. I didn’t know what he was going to do with me, and the not knowing left me with tears rolling down my face.
“Leave her alone. I mean it! You guys leave her alone!” His body trembled, and his voice shook. He had his head down staring at the floor in front of us in the silence. Music wasn’t even playing. I could feel that the hand holding mine was clammy and cold, but there was an unwavering fierceness in his voice as he repeated, “Leave her alone!”
Because the memory was bitter, I did not appreciate this angel that God placed in my life until I was well into my adult years. Then the memory came to me one day and opened up a sweeter understanding. I remembered how thin he was. How much smaller he was than the others. How scared he was. How young he was…and he still chose to be an angel.
Like the beautiful butterflies on the manure, I had blocked him out because of the terrible association with my father’s betrayal of me. When we ask the right questions, the answers can often be amazing.
