The Day I Would Do Over

I've talked before about how I don't really do regrets.  I don't like them.  I try to learn from my past mistakes and move forward.  Like updating my blog more often, but I digress.  This morning though, I was thinking about something our pastor talks about occasionally.  He calls them mulligans, which is a fancy golf term I don't understand that simply means, do over.  When you get a mulligan, you get a do over.  I'm sure there are many things in my life where a do over would come in handy, but today only one came to mind.

It was in the fall of 2001.  It was actually September 12, 2001.  I was not in a good place.  I had been struggling with panic and anxiety attacks for a couple of weeks and when I had awakened the day before, I began to spiral almost out of control.  To a person already struggling with anxiety, three planes flying into buildings and our nation being attacked doesn't make anything better.  So, for whatever reason, even though I was twenty-two and married, my mom felt like my safe place.  For several weeks, I didn't leave her side.  I went everywhere with her and on September 12th, I was with her and my grandmother (MeMaw) at MeMaw doctor's appointment. 

When we got called back to the exam room and finally saw the doctor, MeMaw began telling him about her back pain.  She was already in her seventies at that time and had raised four children, worked on a dairy farm for a good portion of her life, lived through two strokes, back and other surgeries and in the next few years would live through a brain aneurysm so we wouldn't have made a trip to the doctor simply because she had slept wrong the night before or something.  Still, the doctor was arrogant and rude and didn't really want to listen to my MeMaw or the pain she was describing.  He never looked her in the eye until he had enough of her talk.  When he did stare straight at her, he grabbed her not-all-that-big belly and shook it at her a bit and said "This, Mrs. Tucker, is the source of your back pain.  Get rid of this and your pain will go away." Turning away to write on the chart, my mom and I noticed the shame and hurt come across MeMaw's face as she lowered it to look down at what he had diagnosed as a problem.  After a few seconds and the initial shock wore off of us, I remember strong words coming from my mom to the doctor, but she was soon dismissed as well and he left the room.  Mom tried to comfort MeMaw, but the damage had been done and we left the office, MeMaw in a different kind of pain than when she had arrived.

When I think back about that day, I would use a mulligan there.  I would be in a different frame of mind; not afraid of my own shadow.  The part of me that is still being transformed would stand up and give a swift uppercut with my elbow to that doctor's jaw (in a mostly metaphorical way) and we would parade MeMaw out of there in triumph over the cruelness of a rotten man.  And even as I type this I realize how opposite this scene is from the way I was brought up.

Growing up in church you are taught about the virtues of being meek, mild and slow tempered.  I don't disagree with those virtues at all.  I wish I had more of them.  But, when you look at Jesus' character, it's hard to ignore that He was also a bit feisty at times.  In his book Beautiful Outlaw, John Eldredge described Jesus as having fierce intention.  Consider John 2:13-17:

¹³ The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. ¹⁵ And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

Did you catch that?  Jesus got REALLY angry.  He was so angry that He didn't act on it right away, but rather He went off and made a whip to really show off His anger.  Meek and mild? No.  Righteously angered and taking charge? Yes!  

Just like the time with MeMaw, the places in my life where I could really use a do over is when I have either a) blown my top in an unbecoming way or b) passively sat by and watched unlovable things be done to lovable people. Jesus didn't do this.  He started with holding God and His word as non-negotiables and nothing to be cheapened.  Then He stood up and defended the defenseless and the lonely and abused all with calculated words and actions cutting to the very root of sin and pain. 
The truth is, MeMaw is dancing in Heaven today with a new body and I'm pretty sure, remembers nothing about that day in the doctor's office.  Going back and living out my do over fantasy would do nothing to add or subtract from the eternal joy she is experiencing right now.  But, here's my goal:  I want to be like Jesus.  That's it.  Sure, I want to be a great wife and mother, I want to do great things in the Kingdom, maybe be fantastically good at something before I die, but absolutely none of that is worth anything if it doesn't resemble Jesus. I want to be good and kind and honorable like He is, but I also want to be calculating and strong like He is in the face of injustice.  As my days increase, I want there to be less situations where I would like a do over and more and more where people can see Jesus in me, taking calculated steps to stand up for injustice in the poor, in the lonely, in the forgotten faces of this world.  Jesus didn't need any mulligans and I don't want to need them either.