MaxedOutMama: The Fixer and The Fixed

MaxedOutMama is brain damaged or was brain damaged. She didn't say how it happened, just that it did and that the experience brought her "to the light." Many people walk around ignoring the Light (and I will capitalize it because I believe that all good things come from God, are God), running from the Light, denying the Light, hoping the Light isn't there because they live in darkness and find solace in the lowered expectations of disbelief. The Light exists. It's all around us.

Her post made me think of the Coldplay song "Fix You". I hope she reads this post and listens to the song. Maybe it will make her cry like it made me cry this last Sunday while hammering through math with my recovering, autistic son. My iPod blared from its dock Chris Martin's haunting phrasing and my son unconsciously sang along. (He has perfect music memory.) He didn't sing any other songs, interestingly, just this one. Maybe this is why:

When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse.

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

And high up above or down below
When you're too in love to let it go
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Tears stream, down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down your face
And I..

Tears stream, down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face
And I..

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you.

Chris Martin wrote this song for his wife Gwyneth Paltrow after her father died and she was heartbroken. He, like many men, wanted to "fix her." And while that notion is so admirable and loving, having had my heart broken, having experienced loss, having faced a daunting diagnosis like autism, humans cannot fix or be fixed by anything in our earthly realm.

Much as I try, I cannot bring my son back to life, or give my husband back the parts taken out due to cancer, or undo the trauma and disillusionment that my children face being human. And I can't, much as I try, "fix" my son. I still try.

I can only be guided by the Light and allow the Light to work through me. I must submit, bend my knee and surrender to the Light. If that sounds painful, for me, it is. No natural at letting go, and giving in, it's my way until the bitter end. Until there is no other path than the one illuminated before me.

That brambled way is not as easy as walking in the Light.

Like Mama, I'm a skeptic. I consider myself Christian and not particularly fond of the label (because of how the label is misused) or fond of many other Christians, truth be told (that's a post for later). Religion is tough for me.

But not Light. No, after everything I've been through, I'm more certain than ever about God and the Light. I will close with Mama's conclusion:

I was granted a great gift and blessing, which was being too unaware of myself to sustain lies and bitterness, and in that oblivion I encountered a great awareness. I could form no ill thoughts and sustain no grudges, because I could form no thoughts. In that state, I was unable to lie, to deny, to defend myself from grace. Grace moved in, and led me back to free will and a condition in which I could choose. I will not choose helplessness, bitterness, and futility.

Don't forget to pray for those who don't know how to pray for themselves. Don't forget to pray for those who have been taught nothing but lies. Don't forget to ask for grace who don't know how to ask it for themselves. Don't forget to ask for those who haven't knowingly chosen, for all those are open to grace. God has granted us free will in this world by allowing us the choice of whether to experience That Which Is in this world, and we must invite That Which Is back in by deliberate human choice if we want to help others.

There is only One Fixer: God the Redeemer, Almighty, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, Giver of Grace, the Light for all mankind.