A New Life
Posted by Adam Desmond on June 8, 2010
This is a story that I’ve been thinking about writing for ten years. The miracle of Jesus healing the paralytic has always intrigued me. I always wondered why it was that Jesus first forgave the man’s sins, then healed him. I believe this is the only time that Jesus first addressed a man’s sin prior to healing him. This story is my attempt at a response to that question. I have no basis for believing that this is actually how the events recorded in Mark occurred (although I have tried not to deviate from the basic facts of the biblical story). This is simply my impression of the spirit of the story.
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I woke up that morning sobbing, which was, in a way, a nice break from waking up screaming.
My daughter slowly opened the door to my room.
“Are you alright, Daddy?”
Daddy, I thought. Why did she still call me that? The word certainly didn’t describe my relationship with her. Not since the accident.
Once I had been a man, a husband, a father. Now I was just a burden.
My daughter came over and gave me a hug. I couldn’t decide which was worse, the fact that I couldn’t hug her back, or the fact that I didn’t want to.
Four years. How could anyone be expected to endure this torture?
After my morning bath, the house had settled into the normal routine, with my wife preparing food for the day, my daughter helping, and my son heading out to the stables where I used to work.
He’s the head of this household now. Such a burden for a boy of fifteen. He must hate me.
I saw hate everywhere I looked. Even the love that still glowed in my wife’s eyes just seemed like pity these days. And I hated her for that. I hated that she stayed with me, subjected herself to this life. She deserved so much better than what we had been given…
A life without hope.
I had stopped dreaming of being whole long ago. That wasn’t why I screamed every morning when I woke up, and it wasn’t why I was sobbing that day. I only had one dream, and it never came true. I only had one desire, and it seemed like God hated me too much to give it to me.
All I wanted was death.
Back before I stopped praying, the only thing I ever asked for was to free my family from this hell. Day after day I would spend my every waking moment consumed in fervent prayers for my demise.
Please, LORD. Release my family from this prison. Let them start a new life.
But my prayers were never answered. The heavens closed up, and I was left screaming at the ceiling. I finally gave up.
I tried for a while to repent for whatever sin I had committed to deserve this life. Then I tried to live a life deserving of death. I tried to drive away everyone that cared about me, I cursed God, I spat on anyone who came near me. Eventually most people stopped visiting.
Except four. And I heard their voices outside my house. They were telling my wife something, I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but they sounded different. Excited.
Soon they were in my room, preparing a mat to take me somewhere. I didn’t even acknowledge their presence. They were used to my ambivalence, so they simply picked me up and started out the door, without even giving me an explanation.
Soon we came upon a crowd of people outside a house. I couldn’t see how many, but it soon became obvious that this was where my friends were taking me. They tried to squeeze through the crowd, but carrying me made it impossible to navigate through the throng of people, all of them just as eager to enter this house as my friends were.
Idiots.
Another “miracle cure.” Dozens of times I had been literally dragged to this pool or that temple. They were convinced that there was a way to heal my body. They didn’t realize that there were only two possible explanations for my condition.
First, there was no God. This was actually the better of the two options, because it meant that this was all just dumb luck, there was no master plan, there was no sin to atone for or higher power to consult. Bad things happened to good people for no reason and that was the end of it.
Second, and this was my preferred theory, there was a God, and He hated me. I had wronged Him somehow, and this was my punishment. So they were idiots for asking anyone to help me. If anything helping me would make God hate them.
Either way, there wasn’t any chance I was ever getting out of this.
Soon, I saw daylight, and realized that they had found a way onto the upper level of the house. They found a purchase and had removed some of the roof. Inside I heard a man talking. I don’t really remember what he said, but I remember how he talked. He talked with authority. I had never heard anyone talk like that. He didn’t just teach like he knew the material. He taught like it was his idea. I heard someone push through the crowd asking to be healed. The man simply said, “Your faith has made you whole.” The reaction of the crowd was enough to convince me that this man might actually be able to heal me.
My friends lowered me into the room, and I found myself looking up at this man who had been teaching. He looked at me, through me, his eyes penetrating into my soul. I could see in his face that he saw my thoughts, he could somehow feel my hatred. He saw my misery. He knew my one desire. Not to be healed, but to die.
“Your sins are forgiven.”
When he said those words, he used that same tone of authority I had heard him using earlier. When he spoke them, I could feel a stone being lifted off of my chest. He had seen my thoughts, and felt my despair, and yet I was forgiven. No one, not even my family, knew the depth of my depravity, how I had hated them all, most of all myself. It was only then that I realized that my soul was more need of healing than my body. Somehow this man knew that, and had the power to forgive me for the things I had done and said and thought. But the most amazing part was…
I actually felt forgiven. The darkness inside of me had been shattered by those four little words. And through the shards came a flood of emotion. I knew what I needed to do, and couldn’t wait to see my family, to ask their forgiveness, to begin restoring our life together. While I was lost in these thoughts, the man had been speaking to the others, then looked down at me again and said, “Get up, take your mat, and go home.”
Yes, I thought. I need to go to my family, start being a father again, start healing the wounds I’ve caused by my callous actions.
It took me a few seconds to realize what had happened. I saw the faces of those in the crowd, and a hush fell over the room. I craned around to see what they were looking at, and realized that they were all looking at me.
I was standing.
I looked down at my mat, and I looked back at this man. Again, his eyes penetrated me, and this time, I could feel his thoughts, his great love, and his happiness for me. I was confused, because everything inside me wanted to fall at this man’s feet, spend the rest of my life offering him my gratitude. But my family…
Go…and give them a hug for me.
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