Mr. Machine and God's Esteem

Mr. Machine

   I think it was 1962 when my parents bought me a Mr. Machine Robot toy for Christmas.  This was a cool little toy for that time period.  It had a wind up mechanism that would move the robot across the room and every few seconds it would open its mouth and make a short whistle noise.  It might seem pretty simple these days, but it kept me entertained for a while.  I played with it for a number of weeks and as I did, I kept looking at the transparent body and all the gears inside.  I think that even as a young 6 year old I really had a big curiosity to know how things worked and being able to see all those gears really intrigued me.  One day my curiosity got the best of me and I found a way to pop that thing apart to get a good look at how it worked.   When I broke the rivets open all those gears went all over the floor.  I was shocked as to how many there were and how they all had fit into that body.  The only problem is that after I played with all the gears and fittings, I tried to put the thing back together and even though I tried and tried and tried, I just couldn’t do it.

   Now, my dad was from the school of thought that the way to motivate your children was to berate them whatever chance you got and that would somehow make them try harder to prove you wrong.  I have come to completely disagree with this philosophy, but it was what he used at the time.  He would find all kinds of reasons to criticize me and my sisters and I could testify to his refined ability to do it.  Whether it was about your weight, your intelligence, or lack of intelligence, or anything else he could find wrong about you, he would mention these things over and over again.

   My inability to get this robot back together was just the opportunity that he needed to start in on me.  From that moment on, he would use almost every chance he had to say “You are so dumb; you couldn’t even put that Mr. Machine back together!”   Yea, it pretty much cut me deep every time. Most of my young life, until I left right after High School for the Military, I remember him time after time after time repeating those words.  I personally think that I was above average intelligence, but because of this frequent criticism I rarely lived up to much potential.  I developed into a pretty shy and un-confident man.

   It was shortly after I left home that something happened to me to change the rest of my life and to help transform this very unpleasant memory.  I had joined the Air Force Military and after a short time was stationed in North Carolina.  One weekend, out of boredom and a curiosity about spirituality, I decided to attend a weekend Christian Retreat that was sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ.  During that weekend I came to understand exactly what it was to become a Christian and made the decision in my heart to bring my life under the authority and influence of Jesus Christ.  I do not want to go into too much detail here, but this “re-birth” dramatically affected my life.

   One of the ways that it affected my life was, as I was reading the Bible, my esteem started to slowly grow.  I discovered something better than a healthy self-esteem - I found God’s Esteem!  I found out that God loves me and care about me and wanted the best for me.  This did a lot to help me get out of my shell and be a little more confident and expressive in my life.

   Another event that did wonders to help me find more healthy ways to express my introverted personality was when I married a very extroverted lady from Indiana.  We had met in Bible College and even though we clearly knew that we were different in a lot of ways, we decided to get married anyway.  We actually had a lot of difficulty adjusting to each other in those years, but being married to someone of that personality type helped me to become more confident as an individual.

   Sometime after college I went through a career change from my Bible studies to a complete change of study and work in the Electronics Industry.  I discovered that I had a big interest and talent to work on electronic equipment.  I was hired as an Electronic Technician to fix and maintain equipment in the Semi-Conductor industry.  I had been working this type of job for about three years when something happened that became the motivation for me to pen this story that you are reading.

   It was 1987 and we had received a new piece of equipment in our factory which I think was one of the first pieces of equipment that cost over a million dollars.  I was one of the more experienced technicians and I volunteered to maintain this new tool.  It was very high-tech for its day.  It used fiber optics communication; it had a very elaborate high vacuum system, and a complicated robotics handler.  The day that I started maintaining this equipment I came home and was telling my wife about it.  As I talked about it, I am sure that I lit up a little bit.  I thought that it was a pretty cool piece of equipment to try and figure out.

   I think it was about a week later in a very wonderful moment, that my wife said to me “When you were a child you used to be criticized for not being able to put a Mr. Machine back together, but now you are fixing equipment that cost over a million dollars!”  To commemorate this event she gave me something that she was able to find off the new fangled internet and a new website called “E-Bay”.  She gave me… a Mr. Machine!  That clunky old 1960s toy was one of the best gifts that I have ever been given.  This was one of the most touching and wonderful moments in my life and still touches my heart to think about it.   The Lord and my wife had been able to undo the damage that had been done to a young boy’s heart.  Many years have gone by since that time, but this remains a very pleasant memory of what the Lord and my wife at the time, had done.

   I have since learned how to use schematics and make drawings to make sure I am able to put back together what I take apart. 

   I think that there are a lot of lessons in this story.  If you are a parent, I think that one lesson is to recognize and encourage your children in what strikes their interest and not use it as a tool for criticism.  It might also be a good idea to use moments like these to teach and help your children rather than berate them! 

   If you have been beaten down by life and your esteem has suffered in the process, I want to encourage you to read the Bible on a regular basis.  As you do, you will find the character and nature of the Lord.  You will find Him to be kind and loving and encouraging.  You will find Him to be “a friend that sticks closer than a brother.”  The Lord can help you recover from the “Mr. Machine” type of experiences in your life!

 

Written by Lee Malden – lmalden@hotmail.com