I’ve moved 3,000 miles away from Orange County to go to college in Massachusetts where we lay our scene. Here I am, my first fall in New England, freshman year, gearing up to bob for apples at our dorm Fall Festival, donning my new winter jacket, hair curled, nails freshly painted – who knows what boys you could meet at these things?And before I walk out the door, I spill nail polish remover on my laptop and sizzle the motherboard forever. Obviously I was too afraid to tell my parents and so I borrowed computers all that year and printed my papers in the library computer lab. In the summer when they finally asked me why I didn’t bring my laptop home, I told the truth about what had happened. And out of love and not funding, they graciously offered to buy me a new Hewlett-Packard. Tuition to life, they called it. And before I finished confessing to my father, he said to me:
There is a net beneath us all
There is a net beneath us all
Sometimes we dance, sometimes we fall
There is a net beneath us all
That was the first time I realized that my parents loved me unconditionally.
Fast-forward to Junior-year: my little brother, having joined me in Boston for school, was borrowing my precious car for a day-trip in New Hampshire. This car was my independence; she had driven me through high school and then through college. Though rusty and worn, this car was my old friend. She had given me freedom to go and do as I pleased, so long as I took her with me.
And she decided to spontaneously combust in New Hampshire that day with my brother and I never saw her again. I suppose she cracked under the weight of old age and there she stays to this very day, compounded into a twisted box of metal and sinews, 6-feet under in a car graveyard somewhere up there, and I never even got to say goodbye. Rest in peace, old friend.My parents were gracious even then. It was about time for me to take on a new responsibility anyway, and though they had little to invest, they invested in a new car for me. I even got to pick this one out myself. She I named “Shadowfax” after Gandalf’s white horse: she was a pristine white beauty of a Honda Civic, outfitted with fresh California plates, next door to a perfect hybrid. Shadowfax was the nicest car I had ever hoped to have and I loved her.
I had barely known Shadowfax for more than a few months before she clocked the passenger door of a very nice car that belonged to a wealthy friend of my landlord’s. She and her forlorn co-conspirator, myself, still maintain that it was difficult to see his black car in the dead of night while we backed out of the very poorly lit driveway.
That was the second time I realized that my parents loved me unconditionally.
For as it were, we, with our limited monetary means, needed to get the cars fixed.
After a long wait for financial resources, Shadowfax had an appointment for cosmetic surgery scheduled to fix the wound, a broken bumper, the only imperfection in my otherwise perfect pride and joy.
Peacefully sleeping my Spring Break away at home in Orange County, I was awakened by my mother with some disturbing news: my unassuming gimp of a vehicle back in her Boston parking space had been impaled in her sleep by a horrid semi while she waited for my return. She was totaled, they said; nothing could be done to save her. And I never even got to say goodbye.
Upon further examination, however, my car was joyfully deemed curable; with care, I was told, she could be nursed back to health. Of course, as expected, the owners of the semi equipped me with a rental car, a scanty surrogate that I guessed, would do.
With this new rental car, I drove with my boyfriend up to Maine for an evening away and lo and behold, upon turning an abrupt corner on an off-ramp in the dark, who should meet my driver-side door, but a deer in a hurry, who, having dented the car so badly that I could not open the door, collapsed in shock, and then, with an angry glare, scampered off into the frigid New England night. Apparently, its work was done.
So, having had little over a week to bond with my new rented friend, I exchanged one substitute car for another – this one a little less in quality, but I guessed it would do. After 3 days of driving contentedly with this unhappy car, she decided to up and discard her carburetor, thankfully while I was in a parking lot. Unthankfully however, this happened to be my 3rd car in a month, which earned me a tow, a $150 cab ride home, and a brand new rental car.
And that was the third time I realized that my parents loved me unconditionally.
When I was finally reunited with Shadowfax, I was overjoyed. I had been happy in our relationship and quite reluctant to have had to settle for strangers.
After I graduated from college, I sold my soul to the company store and got an apartment in the city. But Shadowfax had to sleep on the street. She suffered slight injuries here and there: bumped into; paint scraped by a parking neighbor who didn’t bother to leave a note; windshield sliced by a pebble on the highway; tire thrashed after running over a curb. All minor. All treatable.
Last night, I came home to find Shadowfax’s windows all shot through by a gun. My parents, with very little to invest, invested in me, and transferred money into my bank account to fix my friend, Shadowfax. Tuition to life, they called it. And before I got off the phone with my father, he said to me:
There is a net beneath us all
There is a net beneath us all
Sometimes we dance, sometimes we fall
There is a net beneath us all
Last week, my mom lost feeling in her hands. She said she felt like she had a million little men with a million little knives piercing the skin in her face. She went to the doctor and he anticipated that she had cancer. For a week, we prayed against cancer. We prayed for healing, but like many Christians, we were reluctant to pray such a prayer. What if He did not heal her? What if she was diagnosed with cancer and given a timeline and our prayers were moot? We were afraid of our own doubt. If we prayed for healing, were we testing God? We had been commanded not to test the Lord Our God. Was this prayer for healing in my mother’s blood plasma a test, a sin?
I had been directed to a story in the Bible about Saul and while searching for it, I stumbled upon a tale about Elijah, the prophet of God, who confronted a people confused about worship. This congregation had been led astray by 450 false prophets of Baal, some imaginary god from days of yore. And brave Elijah challenged them and their god to a duel:
“‘I am the only one of the LORD’s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. Get two bulls for us. Let them choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire—he is God.’
“The 450 false prophets of Baal accepted the challenge, and begged their god to answer them in fire:
“At noon Elijah began to taunt them. ‘Shout louder!’ he said. ‘Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.’ So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.”
And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they’d made. Now it was Elijah’s turn to show those people who was God:
“With the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed. He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, ‘Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.’
“‘Do it again,’ he said, and they did it again.
“‘Do it a third time,’ he ordered, and they did it the third time. The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.
“At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: ‘O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.’”
Boom.
“… the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.
“When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, ‘The LORD -he is God! The LORD -he is God!’”
Elijah was never testing God; nay, he was trusting God, which is an entirely different matter altogether. And likewise, when I trust my God, He will deliver. He may not deliver in the way I expect, but I can trust that whatever He does in my life will be remarkably better than anything that I could have asked or imagined.
As I wait for my mother’s appointment with the neurologist, I anticipate the worst but pray for the best and try to trust instead of test.
And when the verdict is finally in, I learn that my mother’s problem is benign and not cancerous, and that indeed, there is a net beneath us all, there is a net beneath us all. And now we dance…
I am an independent person; I want to take care of myself. I don’t want anybody’s help, not nobody’s, not no how. But for some reason, my brother, my sister, my boyfriend, my parents, all seem to stay protective of me. I suppose that’s because I’ve been hurt before a bunch. I’ve struggled with depression and heartbreaks and for some reason, though I need people the most, I seem the push them away the most, too. I want to take care of my car and my computer by myself, but I lack the funding, the skill, the know-how to remedy my Shadowfax, my mother, myself of all our ailments. So I trust. There’s nothing else I can do. And God loves me unconditionally.
Need is a fickle thing. Those of us who have it hate it. But we can rest assured that no matter how independent we think we are, no matter how much we think we don’t need anyone to take care of us, there is a net beneath us all. There is a net beneath us all. Sometimes we dance, sometimes we fall. There is a net beneath us all.
Praise God.
