Do you remember that book “monsters under my bed” I can like it was yesterday, but I’m not talking about imaginary monsters, these monsters are real!
I was watching some reels today and the theme of monsters kept coming up. One monster was explained from the book “Dante’s Inferno” where hell has “levels” and one level above Satan is betrayal… betrayal is the opposite of established trust.
I am hard pressed to think of a monster more destructive than betrayal.
The man who loses a son to a kidnapper, never seeing him again, recalling the night 40 years later.
A botched abortion where the child is left to die on a cold winter’s day in the open window of a hospital.
The woman groped as she served her customers in the restaurant.
The grown man discovers he was put up for adoption because it was “inconvenient” to his parents.
Trust, betrayal… What makes a person betray the trust of another? I’m not perfect, and I too have a story of great betrayal of a friend’s trust. I am guilty of the worst type of betrayal, I know that side, it comes so naturally. I also know the other side of betrayal. I know the feeling of a friend stealing $20.00… I trusted this friend to buy me some “dope”, he simply took that money and avoided me… sounds petty? Well, betrayal comes in every form, and every time it hurts. Every time it sears our conscience, regardless of the roles we are in at the time.
I stop, I pause and I think, what’s the worst form of betrayal? A friend over money? A co-worker telling lies or “twisting the truth” to advance his own status at work? A law enforcement officer that doesn’t pursue ticketing of a pretty girl driving too fast but not letting that girl’s husband go as he is trying to get to work on time after the baby puked on him as he was headed out the door?
Each of us have our own story, each of us have our own journey, each of us have our own “monsters under the bed”. How do we move past betrayal? How do we rebuild trust? How can we be trusted again? Should we….?
After nearly 19 years of a hard marriage, the man found underwear under his bed, they were not his, he knew what that meant, he was no fool. But he decided go on, believing the story that it was her brother’s underwear that got mixed in from the hunting season… . This man I will call Joe, knew in his heart what this meant, he decided “one more chance”… is he a fool? Over two years of cheating, it caught them both in the act, how many more lovers had there been. Joe counted at least 6 others, starting in the first of nineteen years.
As I learned of “Joe’s” story, I felt my heart break. Joe was not a perfect husband, he made many mistakes, he knew those mistakes all too well, but one thing Joe held on to after all those years, he said “I never gave up hope! I lost trust, I was betrayed by my closest friend, I did some stupid and hurtful things, but I never quit, I never gave up!”
I still talk to this man I call Joe, I still see him from time to time, but he is a new man now, he has learned to trust again, he has learned there is more than the past that makes a man, he has learned the value of serving others without restraint.
Monsters try to eat us, they lie and tell us “there is no reason to go on living”. Monsters don’t care about you, monsters devour everything. If you looked under your bed and find a monster, know there is hope.
Monsters might hide in the closet, running out the door when nobody is looking or they may blend in under the bed. The point is, monsters only have power when we give them that power, take that power back, give that power to Jesus, start living for the one that never betrays us.
Jesus said “Everything is possible for one who believes”.
Monsters, only you can feed a monster, but Jesus can feed you.
With great love from our father in heaven, Charlie