Everyday Hero #17

 October 12, 2022

“I think you should contact this fellow and befriend him on Facebook.” My friend sent me this message some years ago. Back then, there weren’t so many hackers, and I was a bit naïve about where such interactions might end up, so I agreed. 

Peter was a bit of an enigma. I’m not sure why he wanted to be my FB friend, but we began conversations, if you could call them that. Anytime I said anything at all about my faith in Christ, he had contrary words. He challenged everything, denying the validity of a faith life with vehemence and vitriol. Peter wasn’t dumb; he quoted various agnostic or atheistic philosophers and attacked my posts at every opportunity. I didn’t mind it; verbal sparring sharpens the mind, and I was always careful to calmly state my position without rancor. Friends would often jump in on our conversations with emotion and defensiveness which I often had to discourage because it wasn’t helpful to my purposes of showing him Christ.

I suppose I knew the day would come when it really turned nasty. I don’t exactly remember what I said on this occasion, but it must have been something about raising my kids to know and follow Christ, because his reaction was sharp and revealing. “Anyone who teaches their kids about God should be arrested for child abuse!” I had touched a nerve, so I decided to probe a bit.

“For someone who has no children, you have more than enough advice for those of us who do,” I said (or words to that effect). “What gives you the right to tell someone how to raise their children?” 

His answer was an explosion of rage which uncovered the real issue. A relative who had been following our conversations privately messaged me. He had been abused as a child, sexually and physically. His only source of refuge was a grandfather who when Peter was about 12, developed cancer. Peter prayed for him, but he died. God hadn’t answered his prayer, so God didn’t exist. The strange thing about all this is his anger towards a God he didn’t believe in.

I tried to keep the conversation going, listening, praying, and looking for even the slightest opportunity to love him in Jesus’ name, but right about that time, Linda’s mother died, and when I posted about it, he went on the attack against Linda. I had to shut him off for her sake.

I’ve thought often about Peter, prayed for him, wondering if someone else has been able to pierce the walls he has built up to protect himself from being hurt and disappointed again. And I’ve thought about the effect one’s life experiences has on people. We never know from looking at the outside what’s going on inside someone. Sometimes those who seem to be on top of the world are teetering on the edge of disaster, and a smile often hides a broken heart. So once more tonight, I pray for the Peters of this world, filled with anger because they’ve been wounded so deeply. I pray that Jesus Christ, the Great Healer, will somehow penetrate those defenses with his love, forgiveness, mercy, and grace. Strangely enough, in his brokenness, Peter is one of my Everyday Heroes because he helped me see life through his clouded and tear-filled eyes.