Surprise
I
love surprises. I’ve always wanted a surprise party and the only
time someone threw me one, I knew about it! It was when I lived
in the States and we were soon to move back to England. My
friends thought it would be nice to throw me a leaving party, a
surprise leaving party. The problem was they weren’t very good
at the subtleties of planning a surprise, and it was very
obvious what was happening. I practiced my flabbergasted face,
and until now they thought I was actually surprised!
The one time I really was surprised was at my 20th
birthday party. I’d planned it myself, so no surprise there. But
a good friend had contacted my brother and he came to Sheffield
from London to surprise me. He actually came a day early so he
could spend some time with me, and I walked passed him before
realising who he was! It wasn’t that I didn’t know what my own
brother looked like, just that he didn’t fit in that context and
I was shocked to see him with my uni friends. I was so excited
and happy – it was a great surprise!
Bad surprises though, are not so good. Finding out about an
illness, a bereavement, a job loss, or that the A Team aren’t
real – they’re just not as fun. People don’t tend to shout
‘surprise’ as they share this kind of unexpected news with you,
it’s more likely that you stand there with your mouth open in
shock. In fact when people are treated for shock it’s usually
from a surprising bad incident, not an over excited surprise
party.
So is it more truthful for me to say that I love good surprises
– that as long as there’s cake and balloons involved then it’s a
surprise worth having. All other surprises should be banned and
not allowed for the sake of the surprisee. All shocking news
should be given gradually to avoid, well, shock. Finding out
you’ve got some nasty illness would take days, and should you
die your family will find out the full details months after
you’ve begun to decompose!
It makes me think that if there was no bad news out there, this
wouldn’t even be an issue. If life were just full of lovely
things then the only surprises would be pleasant ones – parties
and weddings, new jobs and new babies….although to some, getting
pregnant might be a bad surprise – argh, this is so complicated!
Life is so complicated. We’re so complicated.
I guess what I’m coming to is that there are no easy solutions
(or difficult ones for that matter!) to avoid pain and shock.
There are no answers to the problem of life’s many surprises.
God isn’t there to take away those things that we’re not
prepared for, Jesus didn’t die so we could have an easy life.
But I do believe that He can help us when we are dumfounded, gob
smacked, shocked, taken aback, flabbergasted, astounded and
surprised. Someone once told me that the ‘footprints’ poem is
inaccurate because in the difficult times in our life when we
can’t walk ourselves, there are hundreds of footprints in the
sand from all the people around us who help us through. God uses
the people in our lives to comfort us, to support us, to love us
and to carry us. He loves us so much that He uses His best
resource, His people, to help us through the non-party times of
our life.
So when it comes to surprises
I think it’s like the plaster analogy – pealing it off slowly
prolongs the pain, where as ripping it off all at once hurts
like hell, but is over sooner. I hope that the next time I get a
bad surprise that I take the time (once the shock has worn off
and I’ve regained the ability to speak!) to look around me and
to thank God for carrying me, through my friends and family, and
possibly a few unexpected characters – God has a knack of doing
that! I also hope that I will have the love and compassion to
help others when they need it most.
Oh, and bring on the surprise parties! My birthday’s not ‘til
November, but I say that you can throw me a surprise party any
time of the year!
