In Part It Was About Right and Wrong
Why I Am A Christian, Part 2
George Graham
For what seemed like the millionth time, my parents were telling me to get out and help Mrs. Lloyd into the car. To me, Mrs. Lloyd was ancient, wrinkled, ugly, and disgusting. I hated the cane she used. She chewed her false teeth constantly and that was the worst. Or was it the smell that I hated most?
“I hate this,” I thought to myself, as I opened the car door for her.
As usual Mrs. Lloyd’s leg hung on the curb as she struggled to get in the car. I saw it and intentionally slammed the door on her leg. She squealed in pain. I felt satisfaction.
Looking back on it, I was fortunate there was only a black and blue mark on Mrs. Lloyd’s leg that healed. At her age, I could have done serious harm with that awful stunt. My parents suspected I acted intentionally and asked me about it. Of course, I lied. Mrs. Lloyd seemed to know what I had done but still seemed to like me.
The story could end here, nothing but a sad little tale of a stupid wrong thing an eleven year old boy did. But it does not end here. There was somebody else who had something to say.
About a year later, I was in the basement of our church. It was an old church, and the basement had been set up for Sunday school classes. But off that main section were rooms, old unused rooms. One large room in particular was dug into the side of the hill upon which the church sat. It did not even have finished walls or floors. It was dirt. After church, I liked going into those old rooms waiting for my parents to finish their weekly post church chats. I imagined myself a daring spelunker. This particular room was off limits because I got my church clothes dirty when I went into it. Mom never liked it so, to stay out of trouble with her, I didn’t go in there much. But that Sunday, I did.
Taking care to keep my clothes clean (as best a twelve year old boy can) , I went in and started rummaging around through the old broken pews that had been stored there and forgotten. I noticed some broken glass on one of the pews and felt drawn to it. Turns out they were broken picture frames. Then underneath the bench mostly hidden by a pew leg, I noticed some pictures. I picked them up and starting thumbing through.
“They look so dorky,” I thought. We have color pictures.” It was about 1962 and we were so very modern. The government had, I believe, a three story computer that could add and subtract. The dress and appearance in the pictures looked to be 1920s or 1930s. I gazed at a picture of a young woman thinking, “Wow, she has a beautiful face even in those dorky clothes.”
She was so pretty, I couldn’t help but stare. Then I recognized that face. Could it be? Surely not. Can’t be a young Mrs. Lloyd. Oh, but it was.
Something inexplicable happened next. Part of it was the realization that I can do wrong. It wasn’t a feeling of guilt; it was a knowing beyond my own knowing about myself. And I knew I hadn’t figured it out for myself; I was informed by another within me. I had learned the verse, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” and I knew beyond my own knowing I was one of the “all.”
Later, I remember asking one of the older men in the church if Mrs. Lloyd was pretty when she was young. He said she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen and laughed, admitting he had been sweet on her. Miraculously Mom didn’t catch me going into that room by finding the telltale dirt on my clothes.
About a year later, I had an appendectomy. As they wheeled me into the operating room, my Dad asked me if I wanted him to go with me.
“No Dad, you don’t need to come with me. God will go with me.” How that relates to the events of Mrs. Lloyd and the church basement, I can’t explain. But I know beyond my own knowing it does. I did not know the operation would go well. But I knew beyond my own knowing God was going with me into the operating room. As it turned out, the operation went okay.
A few years later, Mrs. Lloyd was found dead in her home. She lived alone; the body lay by itself for several days. All these years later, I grieve to think Mrs. Lloyd died alone. Or did she?