WINSDAY WISDOM 225
Seventeen. Do you remember? For some of us, it was a very long time ago. Life was simple yet becoming more complex. We were a blend of naivety and guilt. We were no longer kids and not yet as grown up as we might hope to become.
Frank Sinatra sang reflectively, “When I was seventeen, it was a very good year.” Diana Ross and The Supremes could get you dancing to their harmonious sounds, “He’s Seventeen and he loves me.” But it was Paul McCartney and John Lennon who sang on my radio the Beatles’ hit, I Saw Her Standing There.
She was just seventeen, and you know what I mean
And the way she looked was way beyond compare
So how could I dance with another?
Oh, when I saw her standing there.
Some years went by, but I was not too old to rock to ABBA’s upbeat Dancing Queen.
You were the dancing queen,
Young and sweet, only seventeen.
For you, the younger set (the rest of you), Avril Lavigne’s 17 nostalgically recalls:
Those days are long gone,
But when I hear that song
It takes me back.
Janis Ian won a Grammy for the saddest, feeling unloved At Seventeen, song of all.
I learned the truth at seventeen
That love was meant for beauty queens.
Well, this Winsday is about the sadness, not the singing, that comes with being seventeen.
Did you have some sad moments at seventeen? I imagine everyone did. I am certain your sad seventeen experiences were worse than mine. Some might have been tragic. I’m sorry.
Sadness is relative. My worst seventeen moments were losing the football playoff game in the fall following the spring playoff loss in basketball. A blocked punt interrupted our undefeated pigskin season. I cried. No, I sobbed uncontrollably for twenty minutes. The sadness remained for four days until our first basketball game.
As to the previous season’s basketball loss, I just teared up. It was sad at seventeen. it did not help to hear a hometown businessman say to my dad, the basketball coach, in my presence, “If Rex had made that free throw, you still might have won the game.” (Ouch! Thank you very much for that observation.)
At seventeen, a girl broke my heart for about the tenth time (It was the same girl). Appropriately, that was about the time the Beatles released their Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
The last episode of the four-year-long TV series, The Fugitive, made Tuesday nights less enjoyable. The Graduate movie did not make me aspire to the sad, meaningless future of Dustin Hoffman’s character. Even the iconic closing scene of true love rescued was haunted by the slow guitar acoustics of The Sound of Silence.
Hello darkness, my old friend.
I’ve come to talk to you again
With the sound of silence (Paul Simon & Garfunkel)
I did not escape on a bus with a pretty girl, but I ran out of gas twice in two weeks. Thus, the famous dad quote, “Son, it costs the same to fill up the top half as it does the bottom of the tank.” The sound in the background was my mom’s opinion. It was not the sound of silence.
Sadness is relative.
Obviously, I did not have a rough seventeenth year. I know of others whose trauma involved family divorce, car wrecks, death of loved ones, paralysis, and other life-changing events. For them, seventeen was a horrible year. For others, it might be remembered as one of the best years. Whatever seventeen was like, it can never be redone. Hopefully, you have grown stronger over the years.
Recently, I posted about the trauma and hope of Joseph, recorded in the last chapters of Genesis (Genesis 37-50). My thoughts keep returning to his story that highlights the steadfast love, great wisdom, and providential purpose of God to use his life to love others (even his enemies) first and most.
Maybe you can benefit from the lessons of sadness at seventeen or whatever year sits at the top of your crying mountain.
For Joseph, the tragedy burst into sadness at seventeen on the day his brothers threw him into a deep pit and sold him into slavery, headed for a foreign land.
The eleventh of twelve sons, Joseph was his father’s favorite. That made him the object of his brothers’ hatred. At the age of seventeen, his father sent him to check on the welfare of his brothers who were shepherding the family’s sheep. Jacob, the father, had not been a very good role model for his sons. He was a liar, cheat, and thief. The great “trickster” even wrestled with God.
How does God forgive, change, and use a man like that? God gave”the deceiver” Jacob the new name, Israel, “the prince who struggled with God.” The lying and fearful Abraham would be called “the friend of God” and the adulterous, murdering, David, “a man after God’s own heart.” Surely, there is hope for us.
Joseph left his father’s hug and home with no thoughts that he would never see them again. This little errand would have a twenty-year hiatus of no hope for a reunion.
Joseph left home in search for his brothers and their flocks. They were not where he expected. He inquired of a man who said they had moved on to Dothan. He walked and wandered in search of them, filled with thoughts of his dreams.
He had no idea what was about to occur that would lead to the fulfillment of his dreams. Sometimes that journey begins with sadness. In Joseph’s case, sadness at seventeen.
When Joseph found his brothers, they were not happy to see him. The brothers saw him at a distance, headed their way dressed in that unique multi-colored coat given to him by their father. This was not the cool Fonz arriving on his motorcycle in a black leather jacket. And it was definitely not Happy Days for Joseph.
The brothers shrugged and sarcastically said, “Here comes the dreamer.” They did not greet this seventeen-year-old with hugs or high-fives or even cold shoulders. Instead, the brothers planned to “kill him” and lie about it to their father. They could blame it on an accident or wild animal attack.
They hated Joseph. You might have had some haters at seventeen. I did. Others who are jealous of you, maybe for no good reason. Perhaps, some group gossiped about you or ostracized you. Were there people who said bad things about you or wished bad things would happen to you?
I am not trying to stir up bad memories. There is a point to revisiting sad times, even if they were not from your seventeenth year.
Rejection hurts at any age, but that sadness at seventeen can have long-lasting effects. It did for Joseph.
Upon his arrival, his brothers tore off his beautiful coat, tied up Joesph, and threw him into a deep pit to let him die a slow death in the sound of silence. There was no food, no water, no way out. He was abandoned to die of dehydration, starvation, or wild beast attack.
That is reason for some legitimate big-time seventeen sadness. There would be no phone call to a father for help. His mother had died years ago. There was no friend to call or Lean On.
Sometimes in our lives, we all have pain
We all have sorrow
We all need somebody to lean on. (Lean on Me by Bill Withers)
His brother, Reuben, who was no angel when Joseph was seventeen, hoped to secretly rescue him. That did not prevent the sadness Joseph felt as he sat in that darkened pit. He was hated and abused, misjudged and mistreated. He was alone with no help on the horizon.
The brothers piled on the sadness at seventeen. The ones who had just acted to get rid of their younger brother forever, sat down to enjoy the food Jospeh delivered as if nothing sad had happened.
Joseph was seventeen and felt his life and dreams were shattered. Have you been in a similar pit and time?
Can you see what Joseph could not see at seventeen? It’s probably similar to what you could not see at seventeen. God was “working all things out for your good” (Romans 8:28). How can that be? Isn’t that what we ask in our sadness?
At that moment, some traveling Midianites passed by on their way to Egypt. Why them? Why now? Why does brother Judah suggest they make “a few shekels” of profit by selling the younger brother they wanted dead?
This is right out of the movie scripts for A Fistful of Dollars or The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. What can they gain out of their jealousy, hatred, and bad deeds? Here is the opportunity to sell Joseph for twenty shekels of silver and send him away forever.
Two shekels apiece. No one loved first or loved most. Why? Selfishness. Love was not as valued as two silver coins. Joseph’s sadness was off the charts. The brothers saw he was distressed as he pleaded for his life and then begged them not to send him away into slavery.
Joseph cried. Bound and broken. Joseph cried more. No family and no home. Joseph cried some more. Bitter pills and shattered dreams. Cry me a bucket, Joseph. No one cares.
Where was God when Joseph was seventeen? God was orchestrating all the people and circumstances to get seventeen-year-old Joseph to where he needed to be to impact this world for good.
Joseph involuntarily left everything he knew and loved, bound for a life he never dreamed so that he would be where he would live the life of his dreams. Sadness at Seventeen, do you know what I mean?
There is no jealousy, no hatred, no rejection, no deep pit, no transfer to another place that can stop the blessings God has in store for you. Nothing and no one can hinder, hold back, or sidetrack God’s plans. Every sadness, no matter what year in life, guides us to future blessings and happiness and, ultimately, where there will never be sadness again.
How did Joseph get through his seventeen sadness? He never forgot it. He learned to trust God and accept it as part of the process of growing up.
“God turned into good what others meant for evil… my good and the good of many others. God brought me to the place I am today” (Genesis 50:20).
GOD ALWAYS KNOWS WHERE YOU ARE (even at seventeen), WHERE YOU NEED TO BE, HOW AND WHEN TO GET YOU TO YOUR PLACE OF GREATER HAPPINESS AND USEFULNESS. ALWAYS.
It just happened Joseph was born a dreamer. It just happened he ended up in the pit, the prison, and the palace. It just happened…Or did it?
“You do not have to worry like the other seventeen-year-olds and the rest of the self-centered world. There is no bird left without food, and there is no sparrow that falls to the ground without God watching over it. There is no flower in the field not beautifully clothed. You are of far more value than all these. Do not live in the sadness of seventeen or worry about tomorrow. Live one day at a time. God will take care of you…Always and Forever” (Matthew 6).
Joseph trusted God when his life was in the pits, in prison, and in the palace. You can too.
Maybe you are going through some Seventeen Sadness at another age right now. Trust God for what you cannot see at the moment.
You fearful saints, fresh courage take
The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy, and soon shall break
In blessings on your head
(Light Shining Out of Darkness by William Cowper)
Can you sing with the Psalmist? “I would have despaired and given up in this life, except I believed I would still see the goodness of the Lord” (Psalm 27:13).
I had some moments of sadness at seventeen and more in the passing years…”But surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life and I will live in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6).
Sadness at Seventeen. An eternity of happiness and love awaiting me.
“The center of God’s will may be for us the very eye of the storm” (Alistair Begg).
All your heartaches and hopes are orchestrated by God into the beautiful symphony of your blessed life. God means it all for good.
Come on Dancing Queen or Saturday Night Fever Guy. So what, that you are no longer seventeen?
Dance with the One who loves you first and most. How can you dance with another?
LOVE FIRST...LOVE MOST 