When Brokenness Comes

It was January of 1974 and I was just weeks away from my 8th birthday. I stood in front of the class as the teacher introduced me as the new student. We had moved from Troy, TN back to Muskegon, MI where I had started my life. I don’t remember exactly why we had moved back to MI, but I am almost positive that it was because my dad could have a good job there. Our family was all in TN, but many of our family members had moved back and forth from the Muskegon area to work in the factories. My dad worked at Remington. Although, family was pretty much all in the TN area now, there were friends who were as close as family and definitely counted as such, in Muskegon.

I stood there, feeling examined and measured by the class, not yet understanding the concept of being judged. The time of standing at the front could not have come to an end too soon, and I was grateful when the teacher directed me to an empty desk, and it was unlike any desk that I had seen or used before. At my previous school, the books and wide ruled spiral tablets slid into a cubby under the seat. My new desk lifted and there was a large compartment under the wooden top. It was magical almost, with the grey metal marked up with crayon and the smell of old crayons, pencil lead, and paste wafting up to my nose, mixed with the smell of floor wax, this was always and remains my filed smell of “school.”

The day went my smoothly as we transitioned from one subject to the next, recess inside because it was snowing and cold outside. We went to lunch and filed into the room, lunch line, and benches next to tables in the order which we had been lined up before leaving the classroom. As I remember, which is pretty vague at this point, the school day went without incident and as it came to a close, the teacher directed everyone to get their boots, mittens, and coats on which began the commotion of movement as my classmates made their way to the radiators that lined the wall under the windows. The tops were filled with single mittens, this way and that way, right side up and upside down as they had dried during the day. Boots lined the floor sitting side by side at the feet of the radiators. Sock footed children grabbed their pair and sat here and there pulling on and tying snow boots. As soon as all the winter wares had been claimed and put on, the wave of movement went to the back of the room where a wall of hooks held our coats. Zipped up and hoods pulled tight, some students went to the teacher for assistance, and then the Leader picked up her book satchel and went to begin the line at the door.

We stood in silence until the bell rang and the teacher said that we were dismissed. The Leader tried to maintain order by stepping calmly and quietly into the hall but the unleashed class ran past her laughing and racing for the door. The brisk cold called for us as there were adventures to be had between those doors and the order that would embrace us once again as we stepped across the threshold of our own homes. My particular home, and as the homes, I found of many of my school mates were in the large apartment complex separated from the school only by a street with a crossing guard and a field spreading over about a city block. As I walked through the field I noticed a girl walking slightly in front of me, glancing back from time to time with a shy smile that told me she wanted to say something. About the third time that she looked back and the distance between us had lessened, I said, “Hi.”

She beamed and walked back to me. “You are that new girl, aren’t you? Your name is Linda?” I responded that yes I was the new girl and that she was right about my name. “What is your name?” I asked and she told me that her name was Angel. She was in my class and as we walked and talked, we learned that we were both coming up on our 8th birthdays, although mine was a few weeks before her’s. We both were the only girls in our families. I had two brothers and she had three. I asked if she went to church and she said that her family didn’t go, but that she caught a bus on Sundays, and on Wednesday nights to go to something call AWANA and asked if I would go with her. I told her that I would ask my parents.

As we continued our walk, I kept wondering if she would turn to go a different way, or if I would need to as I watched for the different things and numbered building that Mom had pointed out on our practice walk the day before. But we walked on and passed buildings and playgrounds and we just kept talking and laughing and making our way to the back of the complex. Finally we stopped and she said, “Where do you live?” I pointed to the right side of the parking area in front of us. “Really?” she asked with excitement in her voice. “Yes, where do you live?” She pointed to the left of the parking area. We were neighbors! I was thrilled and that thirty minute walk home was the beginning of something very special. I had found my very first best friend, and it felt so good! All of a sudden, I felt like I had a place to fit, and it was awesome. Hello. My name is Linda Carol Parker, and I am the new girl in school, but Angel is my best friend!

The days for the remainder of winter and as spring came were filled with after school play, daydreams, AWANA scripture memorization and classes- my parents said yes, and sleepovers! And there was nothing so heartwarming as hearing children laughing and playing outside and hearing my friend’s voice call as she stood 10 feet from our front door and called my name as loud as she could. (I have lived several places growing up, but I only remember this practice when we lived in Michigan.) It was during this time, that I learned what it was to have a friend and be a friend. One of the things that stands out in my mind about our conversations was sitting on the top of a fence at the edge of the apartment complex and talking about Heaven. We both loved Jesus and had been saved, we knew that one day, we would go to heaven. I remember talking about riding elephants when we got there and Angel told me about her grandparents who had passed away about a year before we met. “I want you to meet them,” she said and I was excited and honored by this request. “When you get there, wait at the gate and when I see you, I will go get them and bring them to you.” I said “OK” and a plan was made.

Soon it was Memorial Day and we were out of school for the summer! We spent the days running all over the complex and crawling in and out of the big trash dumpsters gathering treasures and taking them back to our fort, which was a large bush that grew a few feet away from the corner of our apartment and the branches stretched making a roof and providing seclusion. We had a velvet rug of a forest and a stream with a deer standing next to it as our floor covering and a coffee pot and a couple of mismatched cups that we used to drink our pretend coffee while our baby dolls slept in the drawer from a discarded dresser. When we tired of this, we would throw our dolls in the house and run as fast as we could to the playground where we would climb to the top of the monkey bars and scan the horizon for any danger or excitement. Sometimes in the late afternoon we would all pile into the car and go to the beach 5 minutes away at Lake Michigan and laugh and squeal as the waves crashed against us, or we would run trying to beat them to the shore.

Angel was the only person that I knew who had parents that were divorced. When I would go to her house, things were different than they were at our house. Her brothers would say crude things and make jokes that I didn’t understand, but by Angel’s reaction, I knew that they weren’t nice things to say. Her mom also drank beer. I had seen a couple of my uncles have a beer but I had never seen my mom or dad or any of our close friends drink. Her house was just foreign to me in a lot of ways, but she was there and it was her home and I wanted to spend time with her. We always had fun and my parents were right across the way, which I am sure if the main reason they let me stay over at Angel’s .

As July 4th approached, Angel talked more about her Dad, and that they would go to his house on a lake for the 4th and would stay a couple of weeks. They loaded the car up and left the afternoon of the 3rd. It was a quiet evening without her and her brothers around, but we were excited about the 4th of July and we would do something fun with our longtime friends who had a house in the country and a pine forest next to their house, where their kids and us would spend countless hours of danger and intrigue splitting into us and thems and setting booby traps which were holes covered in pine needles so we could capture each other and weaken the defense!

But the morning of the 4th, just before noon, the telephone rang and my mom answered it and almost immediately began to cry. Her brother, my uncle Hubert, had been in a car accident and had died. The excitement of the day was forgotten and our family went into the quiet preparation of an unexpected trip home. My dad readied the car and my brother and I carried things out to load while Mom made some food and packed it for the 12 hour trip, and gathered items needed for my two year old brother who stayed close to Mom as my family began the mourning process. It was a long emotional trip and what stands out in my mind is sitting in the old church on hard pews, hot in the Tennessee summer with no air conditioning. My uncle lying in the big box in the front wearing a suit and his glasses which I didn’t understand since the pastor kept referring to him as ‘sleeping.’ I felt like I was a long way away as I looked at my mom and grandma as their hearts broke and tears streamed down their faces and silent sobs shook their bodies.

We were only able to stay for a day or two and then we loaded up to travel back to Michigan. It was a Saturday afternoon and my world was quiet as Angel was still gone and my family was sad. A neighbor lady came out and was talking to my mom and asking if we had gone out of town for the holiday and my mom explained that her brother had died and that we were just getting back from Tennessee where we had gone for the funeral. She extended her condolences and then she said something that I didn’t quite catch as she lowered her voice to speak to my mom. I remember thinking that I heard Angel’s name, but I dismissed it when Mom prompted me to help my brother carry stuff into the house.

Shortly after the car was unloaded, Mom and Dad sat down with me and told me something that changed me, my childhood easiness and lightheartedness were never quite the same. Angel had never made it to her Dad’s house. I could see her there in the front seat of the car excited to see her dad, her brothers, one two three, in the backseat. Her brother’s were a handful and always fighting and this trip was no exception. In the world of “summer 1974” it was not necessary to wear a seat belt and many people still drove cars without them, not that it would have mattered for Angel. Her mother, who was drinking, glanced to the backseat, to correct the boys who were fighting. The fighting continued and again her mom glanced and this time reached to swat her brothers. They were approaching a bridge and Angel’s mom drifted slightly to the right. Angel was killed on impact as the car hit the bridge at 75 mph and the motor was pushed into the car, crushing her. I heard terms like, hamburger meat, and not enough to have an open casket from neighbors as talk circulated.

Even though I had just come from a funeral; I didn’t fully understand that I would never see her again. I worried my parents as I cried for her and said that I wanted to go where she was. This concerned my parents so much that they made a pallet for me and I slept several nights in their room. This changed my life. I became more serious, and afraid. I was scared that everyone close to me would die. I remember dreaming that my dad would leave or die. I did believe that I would see her someday again in Heaven, but it just didn’t seem right that a child would die. It truly was, losing a significant part of myself.

At this tender age, fear came in, he made himself comfortable and he went about changing my way of thinking, my trust, my joy, and my capacity to laugh easy. He filled my thoughts with doubts, fears of abandonment, and he encouraged me to play the game of “what if” and take everything serious, always waiting for the worst to happen and believing that I didn’t deserve the best of anything.

As I grew up and went through different stages of life, I matured and worked on my relationship with God. Not only on Independence Day, did I think of Angel, but always on that day- I thought about what I could share with her about my life and I would take the time to take inventory and think about how much had changed. When I married at 20, she was the one I would have loved to have standing with me, and many years later when I lost a baby, I prayed that Angel would hold her in her arms and bring her when she came to find me at Heaven’s gate.

I don’t know if it was a direct effect of losing a friend so early or genetics or the enemy plaguing me with hurt and disappointment, but I have struggled with bouts of depression much of my adult life. Times of wanting to seclude myself and push the world away, wrapping the blankets tight around me, trying to hold myself together.

Over the past few years, I have felt Christ speak to me, sometimes through reading books, reading the Bible, taking in nature, having Christian friends, and getting active in ministry. So often, I have guarded myself from hurt and protected my heart through isolation. This is not how God intended me to live. He created me to be social, loving, and kind. He made me to minister to others by being vulnerable and allowing them to see just how much His work has done in me, healing, growing, loving and allowing me to once again find that Joy that had been missing for so long.

I recently was watching an interview with Lysa Terkeurst and she said something that has really spoken to me, “If the enemy can isolate us, he can influence us.” I was listening to this interview on my way to work and this phrase just kept playing through my mind all day and ever since. This is so true. At the times when I have withdrawn, Satan has been right there whispering in my ear and I have believed lie after lie, a little at a time until I look up and realize that I am in a pit, feeling less than nothing, convinced that I have nothing to offer and everyone would probably be better off without me. But God speaks to us, when we seek Him, and open our hearts and reminds us of the love that He has for us as it was written before we were ever born.

The Lord hears his people when they call to Him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those whose spirits are crushed. Psalm 34:17-18

The Lord has sweetly taught me to rely on Him, to lean on His promises and to give Him my hurts, disappointment, my what ifs and He in turn has given me hope and joy. It sounds so easy. It isn’t always… God is always there waiting though, wanting to hold us and renew our strength.

Another writer speaker that I am learning from is Bekah Jane Pogue. In a recent blog post- this quote jumped out at me and urged me to trust. “Let the self- protection fall so love can come pouring in.”

I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears. Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will ever darken their faces. Psalm 34: 4-5

I have spent the last two weeks seeking God on the topic of what the next blog post should be and I kept feeling compelled to share this story of losing Angel. It is a sad story and for that reason, I hesitated on sharing it, but I believe that God has a reason and I hope that you were in some way blessed by it.

I wanted to ask that you pray for me as I prepare to attend a retreat April 5-7. The theme is Pasture and it is based on the 23rd Psalm. Please pray that God will teach me what I am to learn and show me what I am to share. Thank you.

If you would like to read more from Lysa Terkeurst, you can find her ministry and book list here- https://proverbs31.org/

If you would like to read more from Bekah Jane Pogue, you can find her blog here- http://bekahpogue.com/

My address:

Linda Lewis

602 N. Walker

Montgomery City, MO 63361

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