One of my earliest memories was trying to pull a rope out of the ground. The rope was about a foot long and smooth and white like rawhide. It was buried in the dirt at my grandma’s horse stables. My grandma said that the rope was connected to a China man’s hat and the China man lived in China, which was on the other side of the earth down beneath the stables. If I pulled real hard, the rope would come out along with the China man and then I’d have my own China man to take care of me. Wouldn’t the China man be happier with me in America? Of course he would, said my grandma. “Pull and pull, honey,” she insisted. “Let’s get that China man up here to watch over you.”
My grandma wasn’t a Christian. Her philosophy about God was: God helps those who help themselves. She talked about spirits helping people too, friendly ghosts and that sort of thing.
I sure was surprised years later to read in the Bible that: God helps the helpless. He helps those who cry out to Him in time of need. He helps the orphan and the widow and people who call upon His name. God is always helping people, but it is not the proud people helping themselves who God helps.
When I was young, having a China man to take care of me sounded more appealing than having God around. I knew enough about God to realize that God would expect me to obey Him, where a China man would have to do things my way. I watched a lot of old westerns in those days with my dad. Hollywood certainly wasn’t politically correct back then. The Chinese did all the hard labor in those dusty old cow town movies like laundry in big wash tubs with fires burning underneath that made the China men sweat. A China man could do my chores so I had more time to ride my pony, I decided while pulling on that rope. The China men in those old westerns also carried knives. When someone messed with them, they whipped out a wicked knife and scared bully cowboys away. You didn’t mess with a China man, that’s why I needed one at my side.
In looking back, I see I was always looking for someone to take care of me. Someone strong and brave and more powerful than all the things I was afraid of like the red-eyed Grinch, and man-eating wild animals, and especially Jaws. My uncle had taken us to see the movie Jaws when I was about seven-years-old. I never recovered from that film. Even using the toilet terrified me for awhile. I was afraid a shark was going to rise out of the porcelain bowl and eat me. My uncle was the son of my grandma who told me about the China man at the end of the rope. Like my grandma, my uncle loved to tease. My other uncle, his brother, was rich and had a big, fancy swimming pool where I learned to swim. Both uncles, along with my brother, and even my grandma, loved to yell, “Jaws!” to watch me Olympic swim my way out of the pool. I wasn’t a good swimmer, but when someone yelled “Jaws!” I could exit the water in a flash of foam.
Since my uncle died a few weeks ago, all these memories of my childhood have surfaced.
Sometimes I feel like I’m trying to pull that rawhide rope out of the ground again, but now that rope is connected to God. I want God to tell me everything is okay, that my uncle made it to heaven and that gay marriage will never become legal in California. It’s not the gay community I’m against, I loved my uncle just how he was, and I love his gay friends, but it’s God’s laws I want to uphold. California is where I live and election time is here, which gets everyone’s blood up about issues like gay marriage. So those issues have been on my mind, along with the memories of my uncle, and my childhood.
It seems like a lifetime ago that I was a persistent little girl pulling on that rope every time I went to my grandma’s horse stables. I’m sure the adults watching me thought that was so funny. I didn’t think it was funny. I remember getting tired and frustrated with that old rope in the ground.
Sometimes I get weary and frustrated with God. I’m completely aware of the fact that God is not the one with the issues. California has issues. I have issues. God does not have issues. God is perfect, but I can’t always feel God at the end of the rope.
The Bible comforts me in this because there are a whole lot of folks in the Bible who grew weary and frustrated from time to time, too. But they kept pulling on that rope of prayer until God answered them because God isn’t imaginary like the China man. He’s real and wants to watch over us.