Goodbye Gerald

My son usually falls asleep to a story. Well, most of the time, it’s a novel or history book. I read the novels and my husband reads to him out of whatever the current required reading is for one of his classes. I have no idea what my husband is reading to Caleb right now, but I am reading Gone with the Wind (without some of the more colorful language, of course). While I do not agree with many of the practices and concepts included, this book has always been dear to me as it is set in the area where I grew up. I’m also connected with the story because I see a lot of my mom’s childrearing practices in it. My sisters and I were raised to be ladies and my brothers to be gentlemen. Now, she didn’t adhere to the more outdated ways, but she taught appropriate and respectful behavior. Manners were quite a big deal in our home. So, for me, reading this book is like going home and seeing that red clay.

I was reading in it yesterday while my son tried to doze off for his nap, when a came across a speech that was given by one of the characters. It was given at the funeral of Gerald, the main character, Scarlett’s, father. From the mouth of a simple, even keeled man named Will, came a profound truth that struck me hard. He spoke of Gerald as a man that had come from another country, had different experiences, but was very much like his Southern neighbors in that “there warn’t nothin’ that come to him from the outside that could lick him.” Will told of a man who had seen and been through many difficult situations. In the face of each, “he just planted his front feet and stood his ground.” However, this same strong man “could be licked from the inside.” It was in the face of grief over his departed wife that he became “a mite addled.” He lost his sense of purpose and bearing. He was stuck. He wasn’t moving forward, but let something from the past hold him back from moving on with his life.

When I read that, I saw how I too can become “licked from the inside” by my own thoughts or from holding on to things in the past. Those things that we hold onto can be past hurts or maybe they are good things from the past, such as situations, events, or even people. We can also hold onto doubt, fear, distrust, and anger. All of these and others like them can steal away who we were before they crept into our lives. We can become disconnected from who we were and what we were called to do.

What I took from that is how unlike the later Gerald I want to be. I want to be like Gerald was in his prime, but with a twist. Instead of simply “planting my front feet,” I want to “stand my ground” with my feet firmly planted in the Word of God and His promises. I want to find my purpose in Him and what He has called me to do. This way there’s nothing that can come from the outside or the inside that can “lick me.”