Tales of the Restoration Part III: How to Avoid Handyman Syndrome

I am part of the microwave generation. I am not very patient. When I am hungry, I want my meals hot, tasty and now. When I am hit with a problem, I want it banished immediately. I don't usually panic. Rather, I scheme. When a relational crisis erupts, I leap into handyman mode. I analyze the problem and how it can be fixed quickly. I grab whatever tools are within my grasp and begin banging around with my wrench and duct tape. There are many flaws in this approach. I am sloppy. I have no idea what I am doing. And, I serve as my own strategist, army, and clean up crew. I act like I am on my own. 

The master of the universe loves me. He is listens to me and yet, I act like I have to do it myself?  This is silly.  It is more than silly.  It is stupid. 

I need to react more like a body reacts. When I stub my toe, does it immediately run off by itself for a splint and some ibuprofen? No, of course not! How would a disembodied toe take pain medication? It sends a distress signal to the head in the form of pain. I guess pain is a form of prayer, a cry for help.  

I Corinthians 12 compares Christians to a body. Christ is the head and each of us is a small but vital part of the body. When crisis hits, the best thing to do is to slow down, remember that I am connected to the rest of the body, and send a pain signal to the head. The thing to do is pray.  

Nehemiah was hit with a crisis. Instead of leaping into action, he leaped into intense prayer. He prayed for four months. He didn't do anything to fix the crisis in all that time. He didn't even allow himself to look sad at work. 

The bigger the crisis, the more I need to resist the urge to scheme. Instead, I need to throw my energy into praying and waiting. Often I need to pray and refrain from all forms of the handyman syndrome. I might be called to do nothing at all, except pray for months. In the process, I remember that I am not alone. I am not created to be Atlas, trying to hold the world on my shoulders. Praying reminds me that it is God, and not me, who holds all things together. 

Walk with Me

Have you ever been blindsided by a crisis?  I have.  In the beginning, I always live in denial.  It takes me a little while to grasp the reality of the situation.  The longer this, "what just happened?" phase lasts, the worse it is going to hurt when reality hits.  

Have you ever noticed the pause between when a baby gets hurt and the cry that comes out of her mouth?  If the the cry comes immediately, the injury is probably not too serious.  If she holds her breath, and is silent for several seconds before she lets out an ear piercing shriek, it might mean a trip to the doctor.  It is the same with me.

One night my now ex-husband broke down my carefully constructed wall of naivety about the true state of our marriage, by confessing that he had had an affair. The numbness lasted for weeks.  When the shock finally wore off, I was totally paralyzed by pain and fear.  I felt like no one in the history of the world had ever suffered as badly as I was suffering.  I was sure that no one could endure this pain and live.

At that time, I longed to hear a similar story from someone who had been where I was and lived to tell about it. I didn't really want advice, I just wanted hope that there could still be a future for me.  I especially wanted to hear a story about infidelity that ended with "and they lived happily ever after." Infidelity is such a private devastation that few people are willing to tell their story.  Many, many people suffer through it alone.  If they successfully repair the relationship, in all likelihood, no one on the outside ever knows there was a problem.

If you have been hit with the stunning blow of infidelity or with another no-one-has-ever-hurt-this-badly kind of crisis, I invite you to walk with me for a while.  I want to tell you my story bit by bit.  I want to tell you of the pain and God's faithfulness. I want to share some of the things I learned; truths that strengthened me and brought me comfort. God did the unimaginable for me.  He allowed me to live through my worst nightmare, but he turned it around and used it to bless me.  In the middle of my years-long darkest night I would not have imagined that the story of my life could be anything but a tragedy.  But it isn't a tragedy at all.  It is a good story.  Really.  I promise.