….because I love you!

Just little over a decade ago, I was rummaging through my childhood knick knacks. Among all my worthless valuables, I found a tattered book. You see, I had plenty of these and still do because I love to scribble. Well, my family believed in living the frugal lifestyle. So, when the year ended, we would tear up the used pages from every notebook, sell them as recyclable paper and make new books of the balance pages. That is how I came to be the owner of many rough books. I loved to doodle, sketch, paint etc. So, this book seemed to be from an era where I was still using lead pencils and wax crayons. When I flipped the pages, I found something that really cracked me up. A picture says a thousand words; I so wish I hadn’t discarded it. This is what I had written, ‘Today, Dada{dad} beat me so badly that my bum became this red’. This statement was immediately followed by an arrow directed towards a 5cm*3cm illustration of streaks made by a dark red wax crayon with visible repetitions for added opaqueness and tint. In those days, even the small crayon kits had two different reds – one was lighter, while the other was darker, remember? And, I used the really dark hue of red. Well, if that statement were true, I would have been hospitalized and my dad would be in jail back then. You see my dad was the most righteous man I’ve ever known. He was the paragon of honesty. He was humble, intelligent, articulate, pious, extremely loving and a family oriented man. His moral standards were really high and everybody knew that about him. It wasn’t that he echoed it everywhere he went; people just knew he was a trustworthy man.

But the man was quite scary when it came to discipline. ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’, is what he believed in. Canes and scales were routine for me, unlike my brother who was like an angel fallen from the skies! I remember being punished every now and then for just about anything and everything. But I still loved my dad more {back then, Mama!} because he was the most loving parent in the whole wide world. He didn’t need to be lenient to gain my admiration, love and respect. I adored him till the day he closed his eyes and will never stop loving him until the day I close mine.

Often, I would retaliate and shriek, ‘I hate you’. Children know how to push just the right buttons, eh? I’d try my luck at emotional manipulation with statements like, ‘you don’t love me’. My dad would just go about his work unperturbed. Sometimes he’d attempt to reply with this annoying response, “I’m doing this….because I love you”. That would just make me wail in disbelief and anger. Oh, I gave him a tough time. But, he savoured every bit of it.

Today I’m in a spot where I want to throw rocks into the sky with that same grumpy-whiny face {with the addition of wrinkles, of course} I moped around with when my dad attempted to discipline me. This time it’s for my Heavenly Father. I keep throwing similar statements at Him, “What kind of father lets this happen? What kind of parent are you? You have all power and resources, all of creation bows down to your command….why?!” Yes, I feel God is being very unfair. Maybe He isn’t using all of His resources optimally. I go on to tell Him how an earthly parent who sees His child falling down, rushes in loving hope to prevent that fall. If the child has already fallen down and hurt himself, the parent is sad about his delayed response, returns the child to safety and takes adequate steps to nurse the child back to good health, right? So why doesn’t this all-knowing God come in to rescue me? Seriously dude, I know You can see me waiting in the muck for your hand! I have asked God this question several times, I tell you, I don’t even dare to ask the other why(s). I don’t care why He does certain things, why He lets things happen. Why on earth did you choose me for this ordeal? or why is the earth round? You see, I ain’t interested in the secrets of the universe. I just want to know why He won’t take this cup away from me! And then I remember my dad’s dialogue, “….because I love you!” I never really doubted the veracity of this claim; but it never made sense to me back then. And it sure-as-hell doesn’t make sense to me right now 😉

Lovingly 😉 ,

Ruelha