Deep Calls Out to Deep

This is probably going to seem like a very silly story followed by an equally silly dream. When I was a little girl, we frequented an amusement park called Carowinds. When my dad was a kid, extra expenses for fun were not part of his life. Our childhood was the opposite. If there was fun to be had, my dad was giving it to us. Every year because of this we got season passes to Carowinds. And every Saturday in Dad math if we didn’t go, we were losing money. 

There was a guy at Carowinds back then called Cyclone Sam. He would ride up to some part of the park on a unicycle and you followed him to a stage where he’d put on an “impromptu show.” Now if you went often like we did, you learned it wasn’t so impromptu and he always did the same show. I didn’t mind though. As a kid I loved familiarity, reruns, the same books on library trips…I liked knowing what was going to happen. 

Part of Sam’s routine was to take these squishy balls that he would juggle. Before he juggled, he would ask someone on the crowd, do you know what these are? They would inevitably say balls. He would squish them into a shape that looked like a pucker and say no, they’re kisses. Everyone would laugh and he would feign shock that they didn’t get it right. At this age schtick was lost on me. So one day when he called on me, I was so excited!! I was going to get it right and he was going to be so proud of me!!! When he asked, I answered loudly kisses!!!!  I waited for his joy. Instead everyone looked terribly confused and he fumbled over his next words. His joke ruined, I knew I’d done something wrong but I didn’t know what. 

Now I promise I didn’t ruminate on this for years. But I did have a crazy dream about it in my adulthood. In the dream I was at a corporate seminar. Lo and behold there was a poster of Cyclone Sam and he was the keynote speaker. I spent the whole dream trying to find him so I could apologize and he eluded me. I never found him. 

I asked my husband about the dream when I woke. He said clearly it means you ruined his life, he never worked in that town again, and he became a depressed alcoholic. Good thing sarcasm no longer eludes me.

Now this may be a silly example of this but sometimes we take ourselves and our shortcomings much too seriously. we take on our failures as our identities. Look at Doubting Thomas, one little questioning moment and dang, they added it to the guy’s name! In John 11 when Jesus said He was going to Lazarus, the disciples said uh, Jesus, isn’t that where they tried to stone You? Maybe not the best plan. 

Thomas said let us go with Him. He said it right away, he had faith! Yet nobody calls him Brave Thomas, Faithful Thomas. You doubt one little resurrection and it gets you a wonky name. We do that to ourselves, too. Jesus knows we stumble. Jesus still adores us. And side note, Jesus did not throw that let me touch Your scars thing in Thomas’ face. Instead, He met Thomas where he was and shared an incredibly intimate encounter with him. 

So if Jesus loves me, I can let go of my failures, even silly ones like ruining a unicycle guy’s side show. 

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me Heavenward to Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:13-14