Hope in Hardship, Part 2, I've Been Robbed by Michelle Diekmeyer

I was napping yesterday on the couch and decided to take off my pearl earrings. I pinned them to the couch cover right above my head, and fell asleep. I woke up when Randy got home from work, began dinner, started some laundry, and then we went downstairs to treadmill. Getting into bed that night, I reached up to remove my earrings and realized where I had left them. To my shock, I had thrown the couch covers in the laundry. I reached up to the clean, folded cover, and found 1 earring. The other was gone. I looked in the washer, the dryer, on the floor – nothing. Maybe it was at the bottom of the dryer somewhere, or possibly flushed down the drain through the wash water. I was crushed. Randy held me in his arms as I cried, and I apologized for being so careless. He felt very badly for me. He gave me these earrings on our anniversary. They symbolized our years together, our marriage, and our love. They were always my favorite earrings.

Today, I awoke with the resolve to search for the earring. Like so many parables in the bible – of the missing coin, or the great pearl, I figured it would be worth a day of search. I got down on hands and knees in front of the appliances, and with flashlight in hand; I searched and pulled out lint and dirt. I went outside and groped as far as my hand could reach in the dryer vent. I found the back of the earring, but not the pearl. I decided to follow the wise woman in the bible and "sweep my house clean". I put on a painter’s mask (since by then I was inhaling all sorts of goop from under various machines), and pulled out furniture, moved things around, and vacuumed everything up that I could. After all the sweeping had been done, I took the dirt canister outside, and began sifting through the contents. As I came to the bottom of the pile, my heart sank. It simply wasn’t there. With tears streaming down my face, I sat there - filthy, covered in dog hair and dirt, with nothing to show from my day-long efforts. My pearl was gone. I felt as if I’d been robbed.

Coming inside, I thought about what God was trying to teach me today. I knew God as the great economizer – he wastes nothing, and nothing is for naught. Of course I know that, but my heart was heavy and I felt mad. I sat down to pray and realized this past year was much like my lost pearl. I had been robbed of normalcy in my life due to cancer. I lost control of my health, where my time would be spent, and I lost any grasp of what I would do last year – I was simply shuffled back and forth to doctors who hopefully would save my life. I lost my hair, my breasts, any possibility of having children, and any semblance of modesty I may have had previously. I lost intimacy with my husband, I lost friends who felt my situation was too scary to stay close with me, and I lost thousands of dollars that could have been spent on other things. Indeed, by my cancer, I felt robbed too.

So, what does a person do when they feel robbed, cheated, and betrayed? I had a lot of options. I cried for a while. I was angry for a while. Periodically, I would say things like, "It’s not fair" and "What did I do to deserve this?" I pretended I could still be normal, I pretended life could be the same, and sometimes I just screamed into a pillow and told God that I was angry that he let me be here. Today, I decided to file a "Mental Police Report" with God. Here’s what I said.

"God, I’ve been robbed. Yup, right here in my home. Well, my pearl earring, and my normal life to cancer. Yes, that’s about all. No, I couldn’t find any fingerprints. No, I don’t really have any enemies. No, nobody saw who did it. Ok, great, please get back to me when you can…"

Then I prayed, "God, I know I can never be normal again but that hurts. So much has been taken away from me. Maybe you are trying to teach me the way Jesus felt when he was robbed of his clothes, cheated of his Kingship, betrayed by his closest friends, and murdered. Maybe you are teaching me submission. Whatever you are trying to tell me, I pray that I learn it and grow. Help me to be righteous even though I have so much emotion and pain. Please help me to know you love me at all times, no matter what happens. Amen."

Feel free to e-mail Michelle your thoughts at mdiekmeyer@fuse.net