PARADIGM SHIFTS & HEROES

 
Childhood Heroes

A red cape. That was what Matthew wanted, so he could swish it around his little body, pretending he was Superman. I can’t remember how old he was at the time. But I did make him a red cape. It was fun for him for awhile, running around our hallway and living room, just like the man of steel did, but no, he was not allowed to stand on the dining table. (Mom’s usually have high tolerance levels, but there are limits, you know.) Superman was my son’s hero, for awhile. Then came Spiderman. Yes, he had Spiderman bed sheets and pajamas. Then there was Indiana Jones.

Kristy and her young friends spent countless hours watching the Anne of Green Gables series. Whether Anne became a model, I don’t know, but I sure hope that there were some strengths in that young lady that Kristy found worthy to emulate. I know that like Anne she has become a voracious reader.  But her dad is quite a reader, too, so she may have been influenced by both.  Like Anne, she majored in English Literature and was also into drama.

Did you have models when you were growing up? We used to call them heroes. I had several. I used to have the picture of a young Filipina in her WAVE uniform. I had it scotch taped on my closet door. I so admired her. She looked so smart, pretty and had an air of confidence about her. I wanted to be a WAVE in the US Navy just like her.

Five Missionaries to the Auca Indians

On January 8, 1956 five young American missionaries were killed in the jungles of Ecuador. They were young men, in their prime, bright, energetic, with their whole lives ahead of them. Rather than pursuing careers that would guarantee easy, comfortable lives, they chose to commit themselves to sharing their Christian faith with people in the jungles of Ecuador who had not heard the name Jesus. I was so impressed by their commitment. Jim Elliot, one of the men, had said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” The picture of five dead bodies sprawled on the beach of Curaray, Ecuador still lingers in my memory. (We have recently met one of the men who were entrusted with the task of bringing down the bodies from this jungle scene. Fifty-eight years later and he still talks about this very difficult task as if it happened only yesterday.)

Hungarian Freedom Fighters

On October 23, 1956, the Hungarian revolt led by young students against the totalitarian Communist regime, was in all the newspapers. I remember looking at the picture of young students standing before Russian tanks that were about to mow them down. I thought why were they doing this? In my youth, I had not quite understood that indeed there were causes worth fighting for and dying for, one of which was freedom. 

Paradigm Shifts and Heroes

These young men’s courage, commitment, selflessness and purposeful pursuit of causes bigger than themselves touched me deeply. And so, the hero of my younger years – one who looked really impressive and pretty in her uniform, was slowly displaced by the missionaries to Ecuador and the young Hungarian students fighting for freedom. I was beginning to grow up. My paradigms were shifting. And they have continued to shift. As a young mother, I looked at other mothers; as a Pastor’s wife I found Catherine Marshall, wife to that famous “Man called Peter.” I admired her and her mother. We named our daughter after her mother (but changed the C to K to make it easy for our Indonesian friends to say.) Now, past these milestones, and into the winter years, I look at Caleb in the Bible, a model of a man. He was one of twelve men sent by Moses on a reconnaissance team to the land promised by God to the Israelites. He was one of only two who gave a truthful report. As a result Moses promised him that the land on which his feet have walked would be his inheritance and that of his children forever, because he had followed the Lord his God wholeheartedly. Forty years later and at 85 years of age, he declared to Joshua who succeeded Moses as leader:

 I am still as strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me; as my strength was then, so my strength is now, for war and for going out and coming in. Now then, give me this hill country about which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day that Anakim were there, with great fortified cities; perhaps the Lord will be with me, and I will drive them out as the Lord has spoken.” (Joshua 14:11-12 NIV Bible)