Dead To Me

I read that the Clintons have a “dead to me” list.

Or maybe it is a “dead to us” list. They are, after all, a machine when it comes to politics so I imagine this list is some combined effort (he adds one, she adds one and maybe even Chelsea adds a few) based upon all their experiences over the past few decades.

And of course, the whole thing may just be a rumor—but between you and me, somehow I don’t think so.

Let’s be honest, there’s a lot of appeal in making a “dead to me” list so if it is true, I imagine theirs might be very long, indeed.

Actually, whose wouldn’t be of some length?

It is so easy for us to take our hurts and our pains and turn them into such a list; it is only natural to see the injustices and the slings and arrows of life as a battle cry for retribution and retaliation.

So a “dead to me” can be quite a handy tool.

Of course, living as a Christian means that while we may very well create a “dead to me” list, we then have to turn around a pray for every person that made it onto our list.

Bummer, huh?

It’s becomes our job to take those who are “dead to us” and make them alive in Christ.

That, after all, is what Jesus calls us to do: pray for our enemies. Sometimes our enemies are fairly obvious: they are the ones who have made life difficult—they have caused us to stumble and fall. Other times, our enemies aren’t as crystal clear to us; they haven’t been outright offenders but they have brought grief to us all the same. We’d have much preferred not to have had them in our lives.

I can’t help but think that at one point we were all on the heavenly “dead to me”list until Jesus did the unthinkable. He removed us from that list through the supreme, almost-unthinkable act of self-sacrifice.

And now all that is asked of us is to pray for our enemies—those people who are on our “dead to me” lists.

It seems rather easy when you think about it that way, doesn’t it?

Cheryl Dickow
www.BezalelBooks.com

Signs from God

True story.

Hand to God.

An acquaintance was having neighbor trouble. As often happens, things escalated rather quickly. What had begun as an issue where two sides were taking tough stands and no one was willing to budge swiftly careened into a legal battle.

The acquaintance—a woman of great faith who diligently tried to live out her life as a disciple of Christ—was deeply troubled by the chain of events which left her with an impending court date.

In the meantime, her young grandchild was in a school play and the play was scheduled for a date very close to the court date. The play was about different virtues or characteristics that are good to practice and to have: things like perseverance and kindness. The grandchild’s role in the play was to carry a placard for one of these virtues—marching around the stage with others holding similar placards with letters boldly proclaiming this characteristic or that trait.

With the play and court date fast approaching, all the grandmother really had on her mind was the court date and the events leading up to its sad reality. She wrestled with it to such a degree that her mind could absorb nothing else. Mostly she kept asking the Lord for a “sign.” Should she forgive her neighbor or should she carry through with the legal battle? Please Lord, she would beg night and day, give me a sign.

The night of her grandchild’s play arrived. As the acquaintance sat in the audience, enjoying the play was the furthest thing from her mind. She didn’t even notice her grandchild on the stage with the other kids as her mind swirled around beseeching God for a sign.

The play ended and grandmother and grandchild made their way through the parking lot to grandma’s car. The grandchild carried the placard at her side and chatted away with grandma hearing nary a word. Court date was just a couple of days away and the grandmother was still waiting for a sign from God.

As each got into the front seat of the car, the grandchild put the placard on the dashboard with the letters facing up. Grandma started the car and looking out the front window saw the reflection of the word on the placard. Sadly, in her state of mind, she hadn’t noticed it all night. Now seeing it for the first time, she seemed unable to move. The grandmother could barely believe her eyes.

There it was, the placard with which her grandchild had been strutting around the stage all evening; the placard that grandma had been too preoccupied to notice.

On the “sign” that the grandchild had placed on the front dashboard, decorated and glittering for all the audience to see—but mostly for grandma to see—was one single word: Forgiveness.

Cheryl Dickow

www.BezalelBooks.com

photo courtesy Matthew Andrews | Dreamstime

Where Do You Write Your Hurts?

Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who had been slapped was hurt but without saying anything, wrote in the sand: Today my best friend slapped me in the face.

They kept on walking until they found an oasis where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning. The friend saved her. After she recovered from the near drowning, she wrote on a stone: Today my best friend saved my life.

The friend who had slapped and saved her best friend asked: After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now you write on stone. Why?

The other friend replied: When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness and waters of love can easily wash it away. When someone does something good for us we should engrave it in stone where it can remain for years to come.

From this wonderful tale of two friends we learn how important it is to write our hurts in sand and to carve our benefits in stone.

This is particularly important for women who, by their very nature, tend to be wounded more easily than men. This isn’t to say that men do not get hurt but that the inherent differences between men and women mean that each has a more specific response to experiences than does the other. It is the understanding that what makes women unique also makes women vulnerable. Women are made to be channels of love, selflessly given through acts of charity and as givers of life, which inevitably translates into a vulnerability of sorts.

It is never in a woman’s best interest to close herself up or “protect” herself with walls as this diminishes or even takes away her God-given “womanly” traits: her ability to “know” the things of God and man—what John Paul II called her “feminine genius.”

Rather, a woman serves God and herself best when she learns to experience the fullness of life as God intended and learns to write her sorrow in sand and her joy in stone.

Cheryl Dickow

www.BezalelBooks.com