Psalms - The Way to be Human

It has been a bad week at La Hacienda for the Holland Clan. After being gone for two weeks, Teri and I attended a meeting on Sunday night and after the class we went to La Hacienda with our kinsmen—the Canteys. The waiter saw a few adults and a bunch of small children and put us in the back room where there were no other folk eating. When everyone was fed the children began to run around, as small children are apt to do. In hindsight two year old children stuffed with cheese dip and chips maybe should not be engaged in this kind of behavior.Everything stopped when we heard our two-year-old Addison crying. Everything stops when one of your children is crying. She was quickly shepherded over to us by her two older companions who promptly reported she fell and hit her head. I was holding her and comforting her when she began to throw up. I made an alarmed sound, maybe not even human sounding, which alerted Teri that this situation was not under control. I did the only sane thing I could think of and held my hand out to catch the vomit so it didn’t get on her dress. Teri was trying to help and I snapped at her as Addison began to expel more than I thought possible in such a small child. By this time the waiter, manager, and others where there trying to help with the situation. After a few minutes we had her cleaned up and I left a large tip to mitigate the extra work we had created for our server.Just two days later I was back at La Hacienda with Wallace and Patsy (Teri’s parents), who were watching two of my grandsons, John Wendell and Gavin. Everything was great, we were seated at a large table in the middle of the restaurant with a large lunch time crowd around us and were finishing eating when John Wendell begin to howl. We looked over and for some reason our large three-year-old boy was in a high chair and when he decided he would slither out, he got stuck. His body made it through the high chair but his head did not. Wallace and I tried to discretely work his body out of this situation, but the more we tried to twist him, the more he howled.At this point we were attracting a crowd. I looked around and everyone in the restaurant was trying to see what the disturbance was. Experts surrounded us and began to offer advice. I could see the only way to extract him was to twist his body back the way he went in, but he was too panicked. I told everyone to stand back and that we would either have to get an Allen wrench and take the chair apart or call 911 and the fire department would have to cut him out. I told a bystander to call 911, while another person eager to be useful went to his truck to get Allen wrenches. Not confident that anyone actually had any wrenches, I ran to the auto parts place to buy a set.When I got back to the restaurant, I heard and saw the fire truck pull in.  While walking in, I told them what had happened and by the time we got in John Wendell had been safely removed from the high chair and was standing there looking bewildered (and relieved) at the crowd of people all standing around him laughing at the unexpected excitement that had interrupted their lunches.As we talked to the men from the fire department, I was both shocked and amazed at how accommodating they were to this frightened young boy. One of the firemen was down on one knee talking to him and before I knew it, this unfortunate event which took the firemen from their own lunch  had lead to both Gavin and John Wendell getting to  explore the fire truck and have their dreams come true as they were hoisted up into the drivers seat. While I watched this unfold, I wondered if the La Hacienda management would run the next time they saw me coming!I’ve pondered this as I am deep in the Psalms and listening to the cries of the heart that echo through time and still come to us fresh and full of meaning. I’ve thought of the kind of God we serve who will listen to all our anger, hurt, sadness, loneliness, fear, guilt, shame, and joy - and hallow it. As small children, we run to our parents who in an imperfect and flawed way listen to our cries of pain and absorb them with tears, comfort, hugs, and words of hope. Somehow as they listen and “feel” the hurt of the child, the child learns to navigate through life in a broken world.At some point as we get older we stop or refuse to listen to our deepest hurts and longings and we move into adulthood impaired, and we somehow think this will go away, but it doesn’t. Because we can’t process our own hurt and brokenness it comes out as we hurt others and refuse to trust God with our heart. It is here the Psalms can teach us to be human again, and show us the kind of father we really have—one who longs for us to come to him as we are—with all our anger, rage, joy, hurt, and sadness, one who listens to the intense longings of our heart.Without the Psalms I doubt we would ever come to God as honestly as a hurting child comes to a parent. I think we would come to God dressed up, covered up, painted up, perfumed, and nice. The healing power of the Psalms is they teach us to come as we are to a God who is so bent on knowing us, he entered time and space to show us his great heart! Go there and you will discover not a “Prime Mover” but a Father that makes the best fathers we have ever had, training wheels to know the real Father.