Save Me Oh Lord and I Shall Be Saved
Heal Me Oh Lord and I Shall Be Healed
Deliver Me Oh Lord and I Shall be Delivered

Today I was reading some notes I took many years ago about my family's emotional and spiritual timeline. In it I wrote some of the major nodal events, both traumatic and celebratory as ways to understanding my own generational history. For example, I put in the dates of my great grandfather's birth, his marriage and his conversion as well as the years he was filled with the Holy Spirit and when he was called into ministry. These are all good things.

I also included some events that can be considered traumatic or painful. These may have a crippling influence or make the family stronger. It is not the depth of the wound that counts but the response of the victim that matters for the long term.

This brings me to a couple of events that fit into the compulsive pattern of unsuccessfully trying to impress my family. I read this entry and shuddered in recognition.

Gary Ray Sweeten graduated from the Ina, Illinois Elementary School in 1952 with all As for every subject for the Eight years of schooling. He was selected as the Valedictorian but failed to deliver his speech when the Principal forgot to introduce him.

Gary had no suitable clothes to wear to the graduation and his parents could not afford to buy him any. His mother borrowed a nice suit from the parents of Clinton Noren who had graduated two years earlier.

While coming up the stairs of the Free Will Baptist Church where the ceremonies were held Gary stumbled and fell, embarrassing himself deeply.

Anxiously trying to save myself was a total failure then and now.