Several months before our second child, Charlie, came into this world, we learned that the wooden joists under our house were rotting. Specifically, we learned that the joists holding up the floors of Charlie’s nursery were rotting. The first quote for repairs was so astronomical that we thought we might have to foreclose on our home.
“I need to go on a walk,” Andrew said.
We lived in the avenues of Hattiesburg, Mississippi then. With it being early summer, it would have been a sweaty walk— but in South Mississippi, it would have been a sweaty walk no matter the time of year.
Andrew came back looking more miserable than when he left.
”Everything is falling apart,” he said.
Of course, I thought he meant this figuratively, since that’s how things felt to me— with our second child being born into a world of homelessness, or poverty, or floors that might give way beneath his feet. I pulled in close and buried my head into Andrew’s shoulder. We will be okay, I told him. We would figure this out. But he remained stiff. He shook his head.
”Every house I walked by on our street had a cracking foundation, or a rotting roof, or crumbling molding. The whole world is decaying.”
Some people are just like that. Some people are always watching for things to feel sad about. Some people feel more alive when they say big dramatic things like, “The whole world is decaying.” I can be like that. But Andrew is not like that. Andrew is the lighthearted one in our marriage, the lemonade-out-of-lemons guy, and his distress was disorienting for both of us. We cried on the couch together. I guess it’s one thing to feel that the world is broken. It’s another thing to see the fault lines.
After living at the bottom of the proverbial pit for a couple of days, we sobered up and got another quote. It was so significantly less than the first quote that it nearly sounded free. Plus, this foundation repairman wondered aloud what work we could do on our own. As it turns out, a lot of it.
When I say “we,” I don’t mean eight-months-pregnant me. (I actually don’t mean non-pregnant me either, but fortunately I didn’t have a chance to boast in my weaknesses this time.) I mean Andrew, and his industrious and generous parents, who came with their tool boxes and work clothes and reassuring smiles. “We” removed the hardwood floors and the subfloor beneath it. The professional replaced the rotting joists. We put the subfloor back down, and a soft carpet over that. I remember lying down on that carpet, all full and round with Charlie, and letting those strong new joists hold me up like a trust fall. All shall be well, I breathed out. All manner of things shall be well.
Charlie came a couple of weeks later on his due date, July 29, 2014— exactly ten years ago today. My college roommate, Jenny, was also born on her due date. She reports that less than 4% of the population arrive when they’re supposed to arrive. Charlie still likes to be on time. Jenny does too, for that matter.
We brought Charlie home to his big brother Wilson, and to his dog Samford, and to the sweeping magnolia tree in our backyard, which stretched its limbs out over his west-facing window. I cradled him in my arms as I walked over floors that were once crumbling beneath my feet. I laid him down in a crib that was held strongly beneath by the work of his father and his grandfather.
When you read this story, you may think that it sounds like a terribly unfortunate problem that was resolved reasonably. I’m going to tell you that it didn’t feel reasonable at all. Those days in the pit felt like the end of all things: The Very End of our story indeed. Everything was falling apart. That angel of a repairman and Andrew’s saintly parents showing up on our doorstep were a means of unreasonable grace to me. The turn in our story was, for me, unforeseeable.
In Frederick Buechner’s chapter on “Comedy in the Gospel” in his book, Telling the Truth, Buechner says: “The comedy of grace as what needn’t happen and can’t possibly happen because it can only impossibly happen and happens in the dark that only just barely fails to swallow it up.” It mostly happens like that, doesn’t it? Things never seem to happen reasonably. Grace tends to sweep in without a moment to spare—perhaps right on time, much like 4% of the population.
A few years ago, I wrote this character sketch on Charlie for his birthday, and now I wonder if somehow his personality was shaped by the impossible grace that he was born into:
Charlie always lived his life without pause—running forward, wildly, into the future, which he always expected to surprise and delight him. You could see this in his eyes. If he were ever still long enough so that they could be studied, you would detect in them that reflection of a marvelous ending, at which he had already arrived. And in the middle of a scolding for some great and terrible act, you would suddenly realize that he had already taken you there too, quite without your consent. Your nagging would have suddenly spilt over into a deep and glorious laughter and Charlie would be the one pulling you along, saying, “Aren’t you glad we are past all of that?”
The sobering part of Andrew’s walk, of course, was that it didn’t matter if we fixed the joists on the house. One day, they would rot again. If we moved to another house, that house would find its own way to cave in on itself. The whole world is decaying.
And yet, somehow it is also on its way to a marvelous ending. I once read (in Running Scared, by Ed Welch) that fear is imagining the future without making room for the grace of God. The whole world is decaying—but also, grace is sweeping in. Wouldn’t it be great if our neighbor could look into our eyes and detect this? Wouldn’t it be great if I could look into your eyes and be reminded too? Take courage, for one day this is all going to spill over into a deep and glorious laughter. All shall be well, and all shall be well, and we will dwell in houses with foundations that will not give way. And not a moment too soon.
And what about you, Reader? Do you have a story about a time when the darkness nearly swallowed you up? Was there a time when grace swept in at the last moment?
A wonderful account in metaphor of this world we all live in because of the Fall. All creation groans for the day when this corrupt world shall put on the incorruptible; the time of the restitution of all things; but for the present this decaying world is held up by the "word of his power" which is ever a dispensation of grace. To all God's dear ones, underneath are the everlasting arms of His sustaining and loving care. Thank you.
Happy Birthday, Charlie! And Elizabeth, such good, strong words.