One of Life's Lessons

Life's lessons are often painful. Most of the time, the pain comes because of the decisions we made or the paths we took to arrive at the point where the lesson is learned. Those painful times are part of the process and we see them as a "punishment" of sorts or the "discipline" we have earned for the choices made.

More painful than those lessons, though, are the ones that come through no fault of our own. Those lessons that come at the hand of someone we liked, trusted, even admired only to realize they are not only humans with clay feet but that they lead double lives and the illusion of who they are does not meet with the reality of the people behind the facades.

Such is the lesson learned by one of my children this week. Actually, some of the lesson was learned three months ago, but the final blows took place this week. So rare is it for my son to voice hurt that I originally took his declaration as a joke and thought little of it. It wasn't until a mutual friend expressed concern and suspicion as to the source of the hurt that I pursued it. Sure enough, the friend was right and the hurt is real.

Initially, I was angry and wanting to seek the opportunity to set the culprit right about his attitude and actions Ultimately, I now recognize that I cannot do that for someone else. I have to take the high road as does my son. Rats! Sometimes it stinks to be a Believer with instructions from the Son of God regarding righteous indignation and anger and that frustrating 70x7 forgiveness thing. I want revenge. 

"`Vengeance is Mine', saith the Lord."

Double Rats! I want retribution.

"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

The RATS are everywhere!

How many times have I advised my children to "kill `em with kindness" when wronged by someone? To "return good for evil"? That "what [he] meant for evil, God meant for good"?

Expect the blessing. Know that if my son is faithful to the Lord and His teaching in this incident, he will be blessed. Waiting for that blessing is a challenge, but hearing my son tell me within a few hours of the hurt that he learned what kind of person he doesn't want to be is a blessing already. There will be more. Will God withhold blessing from the person who inflicted this turmoil? Possible, but perhaps not. It's not ours to speculate nor are we to wish for that.

Do I?

Yep!

Right now I still do, but God is already dealing with my heart and the anger that kept me awake for a couple of hours during the night is abating. I am left with confidence in my son and his response. I'm not "there" yet, but I'm on my way. I won't do any of the things that I thought of doing during the night. I won't contact the offending party nor name him here, though I seriously considered that. I thought about posting a comment on a message board for many to see knowing no one monitors it and I could get away with it for awhile, but that's not the right thing to do. So I will be satisfied with this blog. And I will trust God to continue perfecting His work in me and my son.