Writers In The Storm

As the child of parents raised during the Depression, I credit both Mom and Dad with my resilience. While my father tended to tough out everything, even some of the should-be-fun stuff, Mom offered thanks for her basket of lemons and proceeded to stir the pitcher of lemonade. A genuine Minute Maid, that one, nothing kept her indefinitely low.

This characteristic has served me well as I have journeyed up the hills and through the vales of my life. If I fell off the horse, I got back up there and rode the beast.

Tenacity. Persistence. Determination. Good stuff, eh?

But on occasion, the horse I was determined to ride more resembled a merry-go-round. Somewhere along the way my fixation on achievement, finishing a job, or seeing something through, slipped into a personal goal of avoiding failure, stubbornness, or headstrong stupidity serving only to perpetuate my continued misery. Pride blinded my judgment.

The goal, whether unhealthy, unwise, or simply out of my reach became my personal white whale. Do, or die. In these cases, my resilience served only to see just how far I could sttretttccchh. Before I-

Snapped!

I rarely ascribe my decisions to God’s will. A couple of times I have clearly felt His nudging. And when He nudged, some things took place that sure felt like heavenly grease on the skids. He can give me a run-down on the actual event later. Until then, I pray for guidance. And obedience.

It’s tough for Christians, who genuinely look to God for answers, to have certainty in every situation. Moses had a hot line to God. There was no ambiguity in what God told him. Yet, he still doubted, groused, and occasionally got it wrong.

That’s where I cling to Romans 8:28.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, those who have been called according to His purpose.

The bible has countless examples of a bumbling human trying to act only in God’s will, yet blowing it big time. I’m grateful that He watches my feeble efforts to honor Him and still, somehow, finds a way to love me. That, my friends, we call grace.

My mother, an English major and history minor, enjoyed tossing around old sayings. “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” She used that one with one of my feistier friends. “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” None of us kids took that one too seriously. If someone was mad, she’d say, “They can get glad in the same shoes they got mad in.” Happiness and anger are both choices.

Mom had other phrases for angry people, especially those that whined when they were verbally one-upped by someone-”If they can’t stand the heat, they need to get out of the kitchen,” or “Those who live in glass castles shouldn’t throw stones.”

Agreed. Those who have their own failings, their own sets of frailties, and their own areas of vulnerability, incompetence, and deficiency shouldn’t be casting stones. They’d be wise to step back and take a look at their own life before pronouncing judgment on others.

Jesus had His sayings, too. Hypocrites “strain gnats” in your life while they “swallow camels” in their own lives. They’re more than willing to point out the “speck” in your eye while they have “logs” floating in their own eyes. And those who carry a whole arsenal of stones to cast your way don’t seem to hear Jesus’ admonition, “He who is without sin may cast the first stone.” Or maybe they’ve heard the words and truly believe they’re justified in rock throwing. Other sayings probably apply to them.

Difficult people are a fact of life-we’ve all encountered those who are harsh, critical, eager to be angry. Like the “pot calling the kettle black” they will be oblivious to their own failings while they magnify our inadequacies. One of life’s certainties is that we will encounter stones hurled our way, and it helps to be equipped with more than just a few clever sayings.

So, when someone tries to hurt you… when someone hurls a verbal spear your direction. When someone takes aim because you didn’t meet their expectations. When someone scoffs at your pain. When someone triumphs at your mistakes or blames you for their insufficiencies, you have a choice.

Instead of flinging back the stone in a return volley, leave it on the ground. Don’t pick it up, don’t roll it around in your hand contemplating the damage you could do in return-choose grace instead. Look at it, yes, recognize and acknowledge the pain it caused, then choose to leave the stone where it lies. Let the stones fall. Let them heap up to become a monument to the grace you’ve chosen to live in, the freedom of forgiveness you’ve experienced and can now bestow on those who hurt you, and the peace of releasing your antagonist to God’s realm. You can choose to rest in the confidence that God is good and He freely bestows grace, to you, as well as to the stone-thrower.

As Mom would probably say, grace is just a stone’s throw away.

 
“Do not be eager in your heart to be angry…” (Ecclesiastes 7:9).