Saved

A lot of Christians use the term "saved" as if it's a one time redemption thing. They say, "I got saved," and what they mean is, "I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior and prayed the sinner's prayer and now I'm going to heaven." However, unless I hear someone else using it this way, this is not how it is processed in my mind. When I think of being saved, I think of those small instances in which one moment has been changed, one moment that adds into the great equation that is the gradual redemption of my life as a whole. You see, I've gotten saved a lot.

When I was growing up, and until recently, actually, as long as I'm being honest, I thought it was normal that my brother hit me on a regular basis. It never occurred to me that this didn't happen in every family. If he didn't get his way, he'd hit me, and this was normal. Expected. Hard enough to hurt, not hard enough to bruise, at least in the areas (mostly on my arms and upper body) he chose to hit. I told my mother about it, but he was never punished. I think she believed, as I learned to believe, that hitting was just something older brothers do to their little sisters, and that maybe the real problem was that I was a little bit of a crybaby. I complained to my aunt of this once, and she talked to my mother, concerned about what was going on. My mother chewed me up one side and down the other for making her look bad to my aunt. "If you have a problem," she said, "you talk to me about it, not other people." I walked away ashamed and heartbroken. My brother continued to hit me when he pleased. This continued on through my adolescence until the day I got saved.

We were alone in the house, my brother and me, after school, finishing up homework and doing chores and such. We had an argument--one of those that, between siblings, really is quite normal. He told me to do something and I refused, but that's all I really remember. The next thing I knew he was hitting and pushing, his face turning red with rage. There was a blue vein popping out on the side of his forehead and somehow it struck me funny, the red of his face, the blue of the vein, the realization that I didn't have to do anything just because he said so. And I started laughing. He threw me on the couch and on the floor, chased me around the house, shoved me up against walls and screamed at me. But I couldn't stop laughing. He continued his pursuit, but I just couldn't quit. It didn't make sense to me why I would be laughing so hard when I should probably be crying for help, but somehow I just kept laughing. And it saved me.

(God, you saved me.)

My brother grew so frustrated that he couldn't control what was happening, he stormed out of the house. I locked all the doors and waited for someone to come home. I'm pretty sure I told my mother what had happened, and also pretty sure nothing came of it. I don't recall punishment or comfort on either side. But on that day, I don't think it mattered to me much whether or not he was punished, whether anyone else acknowledged the wrong I'd suffered. I knew that on that day, I had finally won. He never hit me like that again.

I was saved.