Hello! It’s the end of our 33rd day, but before I share our word, I have two stories to tell.
Eight years ago, three little children, who shall remain anonymous, clamored into the kitchen, breathless and wide-eyed talking so fast I could barely understand them. They waved for me to follow. As we dashed out the door, the somewhat compassionate comment of a brother went something like this, “...and we got ours over but sister didn’t...she was trying her best...” In a few seconds we all stopped short in our tracks and stared up. Before my eyes was a massive hole in the neighbor’s floor to ceiling picture window! Our three musketeers had been throwing rocks over the ridge of their house!!! Amazingly, one missed! It was a costly cast.
Not many months later, I recieved a knock at the door from another neighbor. This time she led me in a silent procession to her yard where we halted to examine the entire side wall of her garage. Dotted, like a modern polka dot blouse, were umpteen splatted plum marks from the ground to the roofline and across the entire wall. How could they have done so much damage in such a short time? I’d been making dinner, thankful for their contentedness in riding their trikes. And to make matters worse, they’d used all the ripe plums from a third neighbor’s tree to accomplish their masterpiece! Oh the hours of holding sudsy buckets, leaning on ladders and scrubbing until our hands ached!
From the broken window, to the stains and finally for the stolen plums we were given the exact same response from each tender neighbor...
Can you guess what that was? It’s our word for today:
FORGIVENESS
We can now laugh at those stories because our dear neighbors didn’t harden their hearts to us. By readily offering forgiveness, we saw the true nature of uncondional love in them. A forgiving heart invites ourselves and others to dwell in peace and freedom. Revenge and hatred fan fires of destruction, we’ve seen so much of this, but kind acts rooted in forgiveness are like drenching Living Water on the flames. And furthermore, receiving Jesus’ eternal forgiveness by grace, then sharing it with others, has the power to change the world.
Goodnight and God bless you. I’ll be here again tomorrow, Lord willing!
No comments:
Post a Comment