Reality Check

A lady where I work tells me that her grown kids like to refer to her husband as "grump-pa." I guess it's because he's not always in the best of moods. Reminds me of me lately. Perhaps it's because I've been spending a lot of time looking back at where I've been and a lot of the dumb decisions I've made. You know, if you're not careful you can spend a lot of time focusing on images in your mental  rearview mirror, focusing on all those moments when you said or did things you now regret. Easy to stay discouraged and angry at yourself that way. You can lose hope that things will ever get better. 

In the midst of this looking backward a memory crossed my mind today. I remembered a business trip I took to Guadalajara, Mexico, several years ago. I had the afternoon free -- no meetings until the following day -- so I did what I usually do in a place I've never been before: I went walking. I visited the main cathedral, walked around the central plaza, and then I found myself in a very busy marketplace surrounded by a huge crowd of people.

Suddenly I saw an object that looked very much out of place: a child's red wagon with wooden panels on all sides. Nobody was pulling it. It was just sitting there in the midst of all these people rushing around. As I got up close to it I was stunned at what I saw. Looking up at me from inside the wagon was a boy -- without arms or legs. He appeared to be in his early teens. On his chest was a portable tape player, and he was listening to music with headphones. Next to him in the wagon was a box where people could drop money. I couldn't tell if there was someone there watching out for him. There had to be, for it seemed too inhumane to simply drop someone off in that condition and then retrieve him hours later.

And as I see the image of that boy I feel a voice whispering to me: "Stop feeling sorry for yourself."

Pause A Moment ... and Listen

American Fork, Utah, is the home of the Utah State Development Center. Years ago it was known as the American Fork Training School, a place where people who are developmentally disabled can receive training in various skills, find recreational opportunities, and receive a variety of needed treatments and therapies.

While at BYU in 1984-5, one of my instructors told the following story. Some years earlier, there was in American Fork a young boy who on a certain day was helping his father with the chores on the property behind their home. There was a lot to do that day—feeding animals, general clean-up, repairing this and fixing that. But in the middle of it all there came a moment when the boy stopped whatever it was he was doing. He cocked his head the way you do when you're straining to hear something. His father kept on working. Then suddenly, without telling his father, the boy ran off through the fields, in the direction of the Training School.

Soon he found himself walking down a country road, anxiously looking for whatever it was that had gotten his attention. Then he spied him. A little boy had tried to climb through a barbed wire fence and had gotten all tangled up. The more the little guy tried to get free, the worse his situation got as the pointed barbs ripped his clothes and cut into his flesh. He was crying and scared and bleeding.

The boy who found him realized that he was helpless to free the little fellow without proper tools to cut the wire, so he took off running for home and to tell his father. The two of them soon returned, cut the little boy free and took him to a nearby hospital to have his injuries treated. While they were waiting, the medical staff determined the identity of the boy and found that he had wandered away from the Training School. A phone call was made to the school, and soon a member of the school's staff arrived.

Grateful for the intervention of the boy and his father, the staff member approached them and asked the boy, "How in the world did you find him?"

"I heard his cries for help," came the reply.

"But that's impossible," said the man. "This boy is dumb—he cannot speak."

As you reflect on this story, perhaps you'll find yourself wondering why the father didn't hear the cries for help. It wasn't because he was a bad man. I think it was probably because he was so intent on getting the chores done that his busy-ness simply got in the way of more important promptings.

Life is a lot like that, you know. We're surrounded by a lot of noise—much of it of our own choosing. Perhaps this story can serve as a reminder that there is One who is trying to communicate with us through a still, small voice—through quiet feelings—but if we're not paying attention, or, like the father in this story, if we're too busy with the "more important" things in our lives, we'll miss out on them altogether—even missing precious opportunities to rescue people from the things that have entangled them.