Are you familiar with a place called Lodebar? At the close of the reign of King Saul it was the place Mephibosheth had been taken by his nurse. He was five at the time his father, Jonathan, and grandfather, Saul, fell in battle. His nurse expected all of Saul's family to be killed. In her haste to flee with the child she dropped him. As a result, he was paralyzed in both legs. This was through no fault of the child. Some might say this was not the nurse's fault either, but the fault of whoever she was trying to protect the child from. In this case, that would be soon to be King, David.
Imagine a child being told all of your family was suddenly dead, and then leaving wealth and health for a desolate place in which you are now a cripple. Would the nurse tell the child it was her fault he could no longer walk? What do you suppose he was told? How would all of these things happening at once affect his psyche? What kind of stories did he grow up with? Was his young heart filled with anger or had he given up all hope? Remember, he was a cripple.
Geographically Lodebar was a desolate place and not fit for pasture, but for Mephibosheth it must have been much-much worse. It represented hopelessness, despair, and most likely the dark night of the soul that Saint John of the Cross wrote about.
Most of us have spent time in Lodebar; where we tried to understand what we'd done wrong and how we'd come to be there. When confronted with a debilitating or terminal disease, abuse, divorce, death of loved one, loss of employment etc. don't we ask ourselves, "Why me?" Is this the end or will we yet pass through this to green pastures, laughter and joy? If we finally pass through will we emerge intact? Will we still be who we are now? Will our family and friends still be with us?
Do we blame someone else, culture, government, fate, God? Those who have passed through Lodebar forget too quickly what it was like; otherwise we would all be more compassionate for the wounded, broken, those who find no shelter from the storms of life.
The residents of Lodebar are dressed in shame. These are special garments that allow pervasive feelings of worthlessness and self-doubt to seep deep within the heart. At the same time these garments repel words of encouragement and sincere counsel. Drugs as well as handouts only strengthen the fabric of the garment.
Time stands still in Lodebar. Some of us may be there only weeks, months or years, but some take up permanent residence. I wonder if even death is able to wrench away the garments of despair.
We too soon forget our own experience of Lodebar because we find ourselves out, as quickly as we'd found ourselves in. Sometimes we stumble down a long slippery path into darkness. It is a long and painful climb back to where we were. Sometimes, through no fault of our own, like Mephibosheth, the lights suddenly go out and God and only God can flip them on again. Whether a long process of correcting our own wrong choices or the sudden intervention of grace, the realization we are suddenly out of Lodebar can be like an epiphany. We don't want to remember our Lodebar. We don't want to talk about it until we are far enough beyond it to feel safe.
In the case of Mephibosheth, the very man he feared, David, turned out to be the one who delivered him from Lodebar. Even then, it was Mephibosheth, who had to agree whether or not to accept the gift of grace.
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