Have you ever been deeply wounded by another person who, with deliberate action and malice aforethought, hurt you on purpose?

Have you waited for justice to be served?

And waited some more?

Are you still waiting?

(Maddening, isn’t it?)

In our broken world, wounds come in three ways. Sometimes people wound us unintentionally. It is to be expected in the rough and tumble of imperfect people living on Planet Earth. These wounds are easier to forgive because there was no malicious intent.

Sometimes we wound ourselves by our own poor choices. We make bad and/or foolish decisions. That pain is at the self-serve pump. No one to blame but ourselves.

Then there are the wounds inflicted by others who hurt us on purpose. They knew exactly what they were doing and they did it anyway. Perhaps it was a quick measured decision. Perhaps it was a long process of planning to do evil to us. And when we are blindsided by their harmful actions we stagger back, wondering how anyone could do so much intentional damage with no regard or conscience?

In the middle of our pain we console ourselves with the thought that certainly justice will be coming. The account will be set straight. They will have an attack of conscience and come to us with apology and we will have our satisfaction. Then we will be vindicated.

At first we hope for that.

Then we wait for that.

Then we wait some more.

Then we seethe over the delay and think, “It will happen. It must happen.”

(Not you, of course. But people I know. They think this way.)

Then one day we wake up and realize that the apology we’re waiting for will never come. Their conscience has cobwebs on it. More infuriating, the one who did evil to us is cruising through life without hitting so much as a speed bump.

What to do?

Here’s what my friend Jennifer has to say on the topic. I don’t think anyone could say it better. If you see yourself at all in the above paragraphs, this will hit you like a train. Read this carefully, let it sink in. Apply it to your life if you need to, then pass it along to anyone who could benefit.

“Picture yourself walking through your life at this moment. But turn yourself around in your picture….you’re walking backwards. Not traveling to the past, but moving forward into your future, while facing backwards.

Instead of seeing your future and all the new people in it, you are constantly staring at your awful past. Especially at those who did evil to you.

As long as you continue to want to be vindicated and wish for an apology while looking back at how wrongly you were treated, reflecting constantly on how you were gipped, you will walk your life moving in a forward motion, only facing backwards.

Walking forward, facing backwards you will miss all the beauty of the things and people in your life right now. Because in your soul you are not facing them, you are looking backwards. And because of that you will see your future through past events. It will cause you to guard your heart and miss out on all the joy because of your “facing backwards” perspective.

It will happen in your thoughts. It will happen during what should be happy moments. All are tainted by facing backwards.

When you decide to grab your healing by the horns and shout it out that you refuse to allow one more day to be stolen, you will find yourself turning around and walking forwards, facing forwards.  Then you will see the new things, the new people and the good things that are happening in your life.” - Jennifer Hildebrandt 

 ”This one thing I do: Forgetting what lies behind and straining toward what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 3:13b-14

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

Purposely provoking her sister Annie to frustration. Lots of button pushing in her communication with me. A good measure of “I hear what Daddy is saying but I’ll do it when I feel like it.” Then, when called to accountability, blaming her sister or feigning poor hearing as excuses for her actions or lack thereof.

She knew better, but on this morning she was determined to live on the edge. 

As a farm kid, I remember seeing cattle in a great big lot with room to roam, yet insisting to stand right by the electric fence. Then having the nerve to look surprised when they got shocked.

On this morning, Emma seems bent on getting a close look at the fence.

After reprimanding her for poking her sister while they watched Scooby Doo, Emma stood up and looked at me. Determined to make this my fault and not hers, in a full lung bluster of self-righteous indignation she blurted, “I never want you to talk to me again!” With high drama she made her exit, stage left.

As a parent there are things we do to show our children we mean business. Yet if truth be told, we’re just freezing them mid-step or mid-stomp, hoping to buy time till we think of something to say.

“Emma Elizabeth! You get back here right now! One, two…”

What the heck? How should I address this? Think….think….

Emma came back around the corner. Jaw clenched, eyes narrowed, shoulders squared. She was ready for a showdown.

Then I looked in her brown eyes.

Anger, yes. But fear, too. A dash of confusion. And playing peek-a-boo behind it all, a soon to be 8-year old saying, “Daddy, I’m in over my head and I don’t know what to do.”

“Come here, Emma.” When we’re mad and deep down know we’re wrong, we don’t like walking toward accountability. Her steps were grudging.

“Emma, you said you never want me to talk to you again. That hurts my feelings.” Her eyes lowered. I had begun the familiar “you shouldn’t talk that way to me because it hurts my feelings” argument. The one that attempts to modify the offending party’s behavior by making them stare at the verbal martyr statue of ourselves that we sculpt right in front of their eyes. But somehow it just doesn’t feel right.

Is this about my feelings? Or about our relationship?

“Emma, if I could never talk to you again that would make me so sad. If I couldn’t talk to you again then I’d never get to say, “Emma, can I get you some ice cream?” or “Emma, do you wanna play the Wii with me?” or “Emma, I have a surprise for you!”

Speaking of surprises, I was surprised at what was coming out of my mouth. If this teachable moment is for Emma, why do I feel like the one learning?

“And I could never say, “Emma, wanna go to Krispy Kreme and get some donuts?” That would be so sad.”

Maybe God wanted me to give enough examples to get Emma’s attention. Then again, maybe He wanted to get mine. See, I’ve been a Christian for 40 years. I know God loves me. He has to love me. It’s in His job description. Yet my heart has always struggled with wondering.

I know God loves me…but does He like me?

Too often I’ve thought about my relationship with God from the bottom up. How it looks to me. Rarely have I looked at God’s relationship to me from the top down. How it looks to Him. Sitting on the edge of the bed, telling my daughter all the things I’d miss saying to her if I could never talk to her again gives me pause to think, that just maybe, God would miss not communicating with me. It’s a thought I want to hold, but am not sure how. So I just say the next thing that comes to mind.

“And Emma, I’d never ever get to say, “Come here so I can hug you…”

At the sound of those words Emma’s defiance melted. She threw herself into my arms, sobbing and bear hugging my neck.

In the middle of our anger and our frustration, even in the middle of our sin, we crave relationship. God’s response to our clenched jaws and squared shoulders is not to say how much our defiance hurts His feelings. His response is to open His arms and say, “Come here so I can hug you.” God does not force our obedience. He loves us into submission.

Walking through Wal-Mart later that day, Emma had to be corrected a couple times. Except this time after the teachable moment, she grabbed me and said, “Hold my hand, Daddy. Wrap your fingers around really tight, ok?”

And that’s how we walked. Her ornery streak still intact, but with a grip on her Daddy’s hand.

“Do you not know that it is God’s kindness that leads you to repentance?” – Romans 2:4

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

One thing I show customers is what it can do with a stalk of celery. Everyone’s least favorite part of celery is the string. It’s difficult to digest and it’s also the bitter part of the vegetable. Yet run it through the Saladmaster machine and voila! It cleanly pulls off the sweet part of the celery that you’d want in your chicken salad while leaving the strings behind. Sometimes I crack the bad joke, “With Saladmaster, there’s no strings attached.”

Last week as I was cooking for some people, running a couple stalks of celery through the machine, it occurred to me that I wish forgiveness was as easy as this. A quick spin of the handle, leaving sweetness in one hand and bitter strings in the other. An easy way to separate the good from the bad. One to keep, one to throw away.

Genuine forgiveness is harder than that.

More often than not we forgive with strings attached. I will forgive…

…if

…when

…after

…until

…only

It’s curious in a sad sort of way, this business of forgiving with strings attached. Outwardly, we extend our “forgiveness” because it makes us feel better and look better to other people. We’re taking the high road, being the bigger person. Sometimes we even build imaginary martyr statues of ourselves; a tribute to our benevolent nature and a place where we mentally kneel and pay homage to the nobility of our pain.

Not only are the strings attached, we’re the one holding on to them. Which is to say we have a firm grip on our bitterness. There is something within that is loath to let go of a wrong done to us. We want the control. We want to reserve the right to pull back the forgiveness if and when it is no longer merited. We want to reserve the right to vindicate ourselves. We want to reserve the right to mete out judgment should God or the reproofs of life fail to punish our offender to a degree that satisfies our sense of fairness.

The very fact that we attach a condition to our forgiveness proves that we believe, consciously or otherwise, that we are in a superior position to judge the failures of another person.

Can I say it? When we hold on to the strings, it means we are not in touch with our own sinfulness.

It is inherent within our sin nature not to allow us to view ourselves with complete objectivity. Put another way, it is our fallen nature that prevents us from seeing how fallen we truly are. Our sin nature doesn’t want to admit that the hand holding the strings is unqualified to do so. Instead, it resorts to a sliding scale of holiness. As long as we feel we’re better than the person who hurt us, then we justify having the right to set the conditions for forgiveness to happen.

The problem with this mentality is that holiness is not a sliding scale. God says that His glory, His perfection is the standard. He put it this way, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) In the original Greek text, the word “all” means…(are you ready for this?)…all. You. Me. All of us. We all fall short. Which means none of us are qualified to hold the strings of unforgiveness.

God goes on to say something else. Something wonderful. He says that He “showed His great love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) If anyone has a right to hold on to the strings of unforgiveness, it’s God. Yet He willingly chose to forgive us, even while we were still sinning.

Lewis Smedes defined it best. “Forgiveness is giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me.” Giving up my right. Letting go of the strings of bitterness. Trusting God for His perfect justice as we thank Him for not holding the strings of unforgiveness when we sinned against Him.

God forgives us with no strings attached.

He wants us to do the same.

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

 - Ephesians 4:31-32

A scene early in the film shows the drivers getting into their vehicles to start the race. Franco, the Italian race driver (played by Raul Julia), jumps into his Ferrari. He reaches up, grabs the rear view mirror and breaks it off the windshield. Tossing it aside, he says with great conviction,

“The first rule of Italian driving is a what’s a behind me is a not important.”

What’s behind me is not important. It makes sense if you’re a race driver. Beyond that, it’s still worth thinking about.

As we sit in the driver’s seat, all of us have three parts to our life experience:

Our past - Where we’ve been. The stuff we see in our rear view mirror.

Our present - Where we are today. The view through the windshield in this moment.

Our future - What lies ahead down the road. The unseen future God has for us.

Today we sit in the driver’s seat facing the future and we wonder what to do with what we see in our life’s rear view mirror. It’s a mix of successes and failures. Victories and defeats. Honors and embarrassments.

For most of us, it’s not the good parts of our past that hold us back. I doubt many people go to their therapists and say, “I feel like I’m spinning my wheels. I just can’t seem to get past being elected Homecoming queen.” No, it’s the bad and sad we tend to fixate on. The wrongs done to us and the wrongs we did to others.

How much time do you spend thinking about the imposed and self-inflicted pains from your past? Are they passing thoughts? Rare thoughts? Or are they thoughts that preoccupy you? Thoughts that consume you?

If you get in your car tomorrow morning, pull out on the freeway and drive looking only at the rear view mirror, how far do you think you’d get? Who likes to start their day with the sounds of shattering glass and crunching metal?

God understands that we all have a past. But I wonder… does He spend as much time thinking about it as we do?

And if He doesn’t, why do we?

God says that if and when we confess our sins, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) He also promises that we are a “new creature in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17). By God’s definition, we are forgiven.

The problem of staring at the rear view mirror after God forgives us is that we begin to confuse our past with our present identity. We still see the image of who we used to be. The screw up. The rebel. The liar. The cheat. We feel the weight of our sin and in our soul pressed moments begin to doubt and wonder if God has really forgiven us. When our image of who we are comes from the rear view mirror, we can’t see through the windshield to our present reality and the future God has for us. The famous psychiatrist Karl Menninnger once said that if he could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that their sins were forgiven, 75% of them could walk out the next day.

Make no mistake. Satan doesn’t want you looking through the windshield. He wants your eyes glued to the rear view mirror. He’s not about to remind you that you are forgiven. He wants you to see yourself as the person you used to be, not the new creation you are. Satan can’t stop you from accepting God’s forgiveness. But he will work like hell to see that you don’t accept God’s acceptance. If he can keep your eyes on everything ugly in your rear view mirror, you won’t live like a forgiven person.

There’s a reason the rear view mirror is this big and the windshield is THIS BIG. Rear view mirrors are for glancing at, not staring at. Rear view mirrors are for perspective. A quick look once in awhile to remember from a grateful heart what God has saved you from. A peek to remember that by God’s grace, you aren’t the person you used to be. You are a new creation.

Time to stop staring at the rear view mirror of yesterday and start looking through the windshield of today. That’s where you’ll see all the people that need to hear the good news that God is here to love and forgive and accept them. Unconditionally.

Eyes forward.

“This one thing I do: Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 3:13-14

It’s really windy here in Lubbock. Which is to say the Pope is Catholic, water is wet, the Grand Canyon is deep, and the Minnesota Vikings still haven’t won a Super Bowl.

If Rodgers and Hammerstein weren’t able to obtain the financing for “Oklahoma!” they could have staged the musical “Lubbock” because the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain here most every day.

The 30-mile per hour gusts are pushing my car around as I’m driving down 19th Street to pick up Annie and Emma from school. I’m about to turn on Toledo when I notice a lady from a lawn service crew using a leaf blower on the sidewalk. Every twig and blade of grass, every leaf and speck of dirt she points her Black and Decker at blows out two feet, leaps up, does a seven foot back flip and lands four feet behind her.

I laugh and shake my head. “What’s the point?” When face to face with Mother Nature, sometimes it’s wise to concede to the greater power.

When we think about using a leaf blower in a wind storm, we ask “what’s the point?” Yet there’s something we do that’s equally foolish.

And tragic.

And life draining.

Something that should cause us to wonder, “What’s the point?”

Songwriter Bob Bennett put it best.

“It’s amazing how foolish I can be, to hang on to my sin when it’s forgiven me.”

I grew up in the church, was raised in a Christian home, graduated from a Christian liberal arts college, earned a seminary degree, have actively led and facilitated ministry both inside the church and in the workplace. I’ve been a preacher and a teacher. My head knows the right answers. At least many of them.

Yet as someone has said, the longest distance in the world is between the head and the heart.

Knowing you are a forgiven person and living like you’re a forgiven person is the distance between the head and the heart.

I can’t speak for you, but that’s been a struggle for me.

How many of us know in our heads that we are saved by grace through faith alone, yet our hearts can’t seem to shake the feeling that there must be some minimum level of performance required for God to be pleased with us?

How many of us know in our heads that God forgives us yet our hearts wonder if He does so only because it’s in His job description?

How many of us know in our heads that nothing can separate us from God’s love, yet our hearts are fearful that past sins make it impossible for us to be loved by God, let alone accepted by Him?

In my Bible I carry a bookmark given to me by Dr. Norm Wakefield. It reads, “The terms and conditions of a relationship determine the nature of the relationship.”

True.

So it boils down to this: In our relationship with God, whose terms and conditions are going to rule? Ours? Or God’s?

Put another way, isn’t it time we stop defining God by our experience and allow Him to define Himself and His relationship to us by His own terms?

God says those who have put their faith in Christ are:

Forgiven (1 John 1:9) Reconciled (Romans 5:11) Adopted (Romans 8:15-16) Heirs (Romans 8:17) Elevated (Ephesians 2:6) Never abandoned or alone (Matthew 28:20) Players in God’s divine drama (Ephesians 2:10) Proof of God’s grace (Ephesians 2:7) Forever loved (Romans 8:35-39) Eternally saved (Romans 6:23)   

And that’s just the short list.

After all those promises, God the Father pulls us close, looks us in the eye and says, “Now listen. You believe in me. And I believe in you. Don’t forget that you’re my kid. So when you wanna talk to me, don’t come here hangin’ your head. You come strong. Head up. You come talk to me with confidence because my grace is all over you. You’ll find everything you need right here in Me.” (paraphrase – Hebrews 4:14-16)    

In light of these truths, what’s the point of hanging on to our sin when it’s forgiven us? What’s the point of living in a past that God has forgiven at the expense of a future that God has redeemed?

If we haven’t done so already, it’s time to allow God’s terms and conditions to determine the nature of our relationship with Him.

When face to face with the living God, it’s always wise to concede to the greater power.

Because our leaf blower logic makes no sense against the wind of His truth.

“The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and great in loving kindness.” – Psalm 145:8

In mathematical terms, pi is “a physical constant defined as the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter”. It’s usually written out to 3.141, just three decimal places. Yet theoretically, there is no limit to the number of decimals it can be written to.

Being one who is mathematically challenged and believes the handheld calculator is right up there with fire and the wheel as significant in human history, several thoughts come to mind.

First…why?

Second…really. Why?

Third…”mental health counselor” and memorizing 100,000 digits don’t seem to go together.

Finally, the ability of the human mind. The most advanced computer on earth is like a Commodore 64 compared to our God-created brain. Some scientists speculate we use less than 2% of our brain’s capacity. Read the newspaper accounts of the wacko things some people do and 2% seems like a high estimate. Regardless, we’re all underachievers when it comes to using our brain.

I was thinking about Mr. Haraguchi’s feat of reciting 100,000 decimals and said to myself, “There’s no way I could remember a list that long.”

Maybe so. Yet I don’t seem to have trouble remembering long lists of other things.

Like the wrongs done to me by other people.

And I suspect I’m not alone.

Why is it that many of us can’t remember five items on a grocery list but we can recall in detail how we’ve been hurt by others over the years?

We’re fallen people. We hurt others and others hurt us. That’s life in a broken world. It took God’s intervention to give us a way to break that cycle. It goes something like this…

God’s perfect. We’re not. Our sin separated us from God. We can’t bridge that gap on our own. So Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, God forgives our sins. In turn, God instructs us to “forgive others as we have been forgiven”. That means forgiving with a willing heart. Or as Lewis Smedes so beautifully put it, “Forgiveness is giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me.” 

God says, “Forgive one another as I have forgiven you” (Colossians 3:13). He says when He forgives us that He “separates our sins from us as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12).  

So how does God forgive? He forgives and forgets. 

Not easy for fallen people like us to do. We may forgive, or at least try to. But there’s something in us that is loathe to forget. It’s as though we take the forgiven hurt and bury it in the back corner of our mind, but before walking away we pound a stake to mark the memory in case we want to dig it up again.

When we choose to repeatedly dig up the memories of wrongs done to us, either to satisfy our desire for revenge or to avoid taking personal responsibility for our own failures, we don’t allow God the opportunity to grow anything good from the pain.

Worse, if we hang on to our hurt long enough, it becomes our identity. I know people who’ve chosen to allow a wrong suffered 20 years ago to define their existence. They have chosen to be defined by their pain instead of experiencing the freedom of forgiveness. And it is a choice. When we dig up the memory of a wrong done to us, we’re the one holding the shovel.

There’s nothing easy about this. It is tearful, agonizing work. When Jesus said we need to forgive our brother 70 x 7, I think it’s because He understands that forgiveness is a process. When painful memories come to mind, we forgive. Again. Then give the pain back to the sovereignty of God. We give our pain back to God because He is the only One capable of bringing something good from it. When we trust God with our pain, it will never be for free. In His time, He makes all things beautiful.

Until that happens for you and me, let’s at least do our best to leave the shovel alone. If we can just stop turning the dirt over, God will have a chance to grow something good.

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” – Ephesians 4:31-32

They are still learning and don’t yet understand the importance of a soft touch. Emma had a two footer to finish out the first hole. At the top of her backswing I had to grab the club because her follow through would have driven the ball down the Superstition Freeway. Annie couldn’t get to the next hole fast enough. Hit the ball and run. Hit the ball and run. We had the best time together and they enjoyed figuring out the ramps and which door to hit their ball through.

It was getting to be about 7:30 and they were starting to fade so we stopped to come home. We weren’t done with the course but it didn’t matter. They were whining a little on the way out and weren’t acting as nicely as they could. Their behavior was nothing I had to discipline them for. It had been a long day for them and they were tired. I got them home for some food and a bath and bed.

In the middle of the night, maybe around 4 AM, I felt someone looking at me. Annie was standing there. She crawled in and snuggled up next to me, face to face.

“Daddy, I’m sorry that I quit golfing tonight.”

That didn’t sound like the real reason she was out here talking to me in the wee hours. I told her she didn’t quit, we just decided to come home.

Then she said, “Daddy, I’m sorry that I wasn’t very nice to you on the way home.”

So that’s it.

I told her it was ok. That she was tired and we all get cranky when we’re tired. I hugged her and told her how much I appreciated her apology. “It’s not easy to say you’re sorry, Annie. I’m very proud of you. Do you want to go back to bed now?”

She nodded.

“Are you ok?”

She smiled, “I’m ok.”

“I love you, Annie. So much.”

“I love you too so much.” And she trotted off to her room.

I learn from my kids all the time. Here’s what I learned from Annie at 4 in the morning.

Annie thought it was so important to make things right with me that she got up in the middle of the night to do it. It is a hard thing to come to someone and confess and apologize. I know that’s true for me. More often than not, our ego keeps us from saying the things we need to say to those we’ve hurt or offended. The longer we wait, the harder it gets.

That’s what the Bible means when it talks about “giving the devil a foothold.” When we let our conscience grow cold, we clear a spot for all the wrong things to grow in our heart. Hard feelings. Bitterness. Grudges. Resentment. Once those grow deep, pride becomes a ruthless gardener who is loathe to let them be uprooted.

Annie’s apology reminded me of another truth. When we care enough about the other person to say “I’m sorry” and make things right, we elevate and honor the relationship. Annie showed me in word and action that I was a person she cared about enough to talk about what was troubling her. And significant to me was how I felt when it was over. When she apologized for what she perceived was a hurtful thing she had done, I would have moved the world for her. I don’t know that I’ve ever been more proud of Annie. Because of the respect and honor she showed me, it makes me want to work even harder at being a better Dad. That single 60-second transparent moment deepened our relationship.

When we confess and apologize for the hurts we’ve caused, we:

Communicate a contrite heart that cares about making things right.

Communicate respect to the person and our relationship.

Communicate that the person is more important than our pride.

Communicate a desire to move forward in a healthy, restored way.

God, help us be people who care enough to say, “I’m sorry.”

“And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” – Ephesians 4:32

Unlocking the door on my Mazda and getting in the way I’ve done thousands of times, I stopped half way. The feeling didn’t hit me at first. Then it did. Like a size-16 Tony Lama boot kick in the gut.

Shattered glass covered the seat and floorboard. Someone had, in broad daylight, smashed out the back windshield of my truck and stolen my stereo. The console had been cracked open with a pry bar, the wires clipped. They took the loose change in the ashtray and, for some curious reason, stole the bottle of hand sanitizer that was sitting on the seat.

I’d like to say I uttered something spiritual at that moment. Something that reflected a Christian maturity beyond my years. But I didn’t.

I cussed.

Then I began to process my thoughts.

Why did this happen? Why did it happen to me? I feel violated. My personal space has been invaded. Someone vandalized my truck and stole my stereo. Now my hand is bleeding because I cut it on the broken glass from my window that they smashed in my truck. Why would anyone do this? I’m really, really angry.

Maybe the next stereo I put in could have some kind of device that would blow up in their face if they tried to steal it. Nothing fatal. Just something that would leave them stunned and staggering blindly around the parking lot until the police came to take them away. Hey, they would deserve it, right?

Whoever did it was a small-timer, says Obed, my police officer friend. “Big-timers wouldn’t have stopped at the stereo. They would have stolen your truck.” Somehow that doesn’t make me feel better. The police didn’t help, either. “I know you won’t want to hear this, but it happens all the time here. We’ll take your information and give you a case number, but honestly, there’s nothing we can do.”

The insurance company said there was something they could do. After, of course, I paid my $250 deductible. Now I was wishing for some of that sub-zero Iowa weather. Grandpa used to tell me cold winters kept out the snakes and the riffraff, both of which abound in Phoenix.

With no radio to listen to, there was plenty of time to think on the way home. I’d processed some thoughts. Now it was time to process my theology. Did God understand me cussing first and thinking after? Did He understand my anger? And we’re supposed to give thanks in all situations. What was there to give thanks for? However mad I was, I’m sure other people in the valley had worse things happen to them today. And Obed was right. They didn’t steal my truck. I had to admit that was a good reason to be thankful.

Somewhere between Rural and McClintock on the eastbound 60 it occurred to me that I was using the word “my” a lot. My window. My stereo. My loose change in the ash tray. My truck.

My, my, my.

I stopped at Fry’s on the way home to pick up something for dinner. The checkout clerk asked if I found everything ok and was there anything else he could do for me. “Not unless you can find the person who smashed out my window and stole the stereo out of my truck.”

The guy behind me in line looked like a lost surfer in search of a beach. He set his groceries on the conveyor and said, “Dude! That really sucks. But ya gotta remember, it’s only stuff, man. It’s only material stuff.”

The only thing missing was a voice from heaven saying, “Thus ends God’s lesson for today.” God used faded sweatshirt flip-flop guy to school me in theology. It’s only stuff. What’s more, it’s not my stuff. It’s God’s stuff. In the end, stuff either wears out, gets stolen, or burns up. It’s only stuff. What matters is what we store up in heaven. That’s what lasts.

On the last mile home I thought about the person or persons who damaged my, uh, God’s truck. How could anything good come from this? Maybe they steal the stereo but don’t sell it. Maybe they keep it and put it in their own car. And maybe sometime when they’re listening to it the tuner breaks and sticks on one station. A Christian station. And maybe after they cuss and get mad about the stereo not working they turn it off.

But they get tired of not having any tunes so they turn it on and they hear something that sparks in their heart and reminds them of their need for God and maybe, just maybe, they get saved.

Ok, probably not. It’s just a fantasy to soothe my anger. But stranger things have happened. Like God loving a broken person like me enough to send His only Son to die that I might have life.

In everyone’s book but God’s, that was a real long shot.

Anyway, it was something to think about again last Saturday when I cussed again. This time a bullet hole in the driver’s window on my truck. Shattered.

Surfer dude wasn’t around this time, but his words linger. “Dude, ya gotta remember, it’s only stuff, man. It’s only material stuff.”

True.

And comprehensive glass coverage is definitely something to be thankful for.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
 - Matthew 6:19-21

It was 4 PM on the afternoon of April 16th. We had just put our twins down for a nap. Annie and Emma, protesting mildly because it’s in their job description, were smiling when they grabbed their fleece blankets to snuggle in for a snooze.

Sara asked me to help her pull a stroller out of our truck. We walked out to the driveway to see a bizarre and frightening scene unfolding. A white Chevy pickup stopped suddenly at the intersection of Nebraska Street and Elliot, a major arterial street. Other cars, forced to slow and swerve because of the truck, moved to outside lanes during rush hour traffic.

In the middle of this commotion, in the right lane of Elliot Road, stood a crying two-year old boy.

I sprinted toward him but I was three houses away. Thankfully, the man in the white truck scooped him up and carried him to the sidewalk. He had purposely parked his truck at an awkward angle to block the lane in hopes of keeping the boy from being run over.
A lady in a Chevy Blazer stopped and turned on her hazard lights, yelling to me as she got out, “Get that license number!”

About 50 feet away, a 4-door 1980-something Chevy Lumina was stopped in the right hand lane. I memorized the plate number. Two women in their 20’s, occupants of the car in question, were now running toward the boy. One was his mother, the other probably his aunt. The mother took him from the man who had carried him to safety. She began walking back to her car while those who had stopped to help bombarded her with questions and heated commentary.

“I can’t believe what just happened!!! The kid fell out of the car!!! I saw it happen!!! The back door just opened up and he hit the concrete!!!”

“Why the hell wasn’t he in a car seat?! There’s no damn excuse for that! Kids are supposed to be in car seats!”

“Is he bleeding? Is he hurt? He’s gotta get checked out.”

“Has anyone called the cops?”

The mom looked strangely calm. That made me mad. Maybe she was too stunned to be anything but numb. Over my shoulder I saw the boy’s rescuer on the phone with the police. I followed the mom to her car. When I looked inside, my blood boiled. In the back seat, a baby less than eight months old was sitting in an infant seat. The straps were loose and floppy, the seat wasn’t secure and, worst of all, it was facing the front of the car. I’ve seen people take more care in hauling home a gallon of milk from the store. A collision would send that baby bouncing like a ping pong ball. Next to the baby was a three-year old boy, roaming around the backseat like a goat in a pasture. Three kids. One infant seat. No car seats. Now I’m seriously angry.

“Don’t you have car seats???!!!” Given the exponential degree of blatant criminal carelessness I’d just witnessed, I was hoping for a tearful, “No, I’m sorry. I don’t. I can’t afford them.” That was something we could help her with.

“Yeah. I do.”

“You have car seats and you’re not using them???!!! Your kid just fell out of the car!”

“His brother must have opened the door.” Stupidity is no respecter of gender. Yet had this been a male, my name would have been on a police report for “assault with intent to do severe bodily harm to an idiot.”

“You have to get your boy checked by a doctor immediately. He could be hurt.”

“I think he’s ok.”

“Thinking doesn’t cut it. You need to wait here for the police.” She didn’t think so. She drove away.

After all the pertinent information was passed along to the responding police officer, I walked back to the house. A line from the movie “Parenthood” popped into my head. “You know, Mrs. Buchman, you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car — hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they’ll let any #!$%^&# be a father.”

Or a mother.

A two year old boy fell out of a moving car on to a busy street because his mother chose not to protect him. That’s child abuse, plain and simple. By her own admission, she had car seats. She chose not to use them. Thanks to God’s protection and the quick thinking of a man in a white Chevy truck, the little boy wasn’t run over and killed. How sad is it when total strangers demonstrate more love toward your children than you do? We can only pray that this little boy will live a long life in spite of his mother’s neglect.

Sitting in church on a Sunday it’s easy to nod your head in agreement when the pastor quotes from Ephesians 4 and says,”be angry, but don’t sin”. But Sunday is one day out of seven. This is Tuesday and I’m angry. I want this lady found and cited for endangering her kids. For not using car seats. And if possible, a big fat fine for seeming indifferent to the fact that her toddler fell out of her moving car in the middle of rush hour traffic. Then again, when your own son bounces on the street like a tennis ball and you can’t muster a single tear, a citation from the police probably won’t put much of a wrinkle in your day.

Mercy is not receiving the punishment we deserve. Because she drove away before the police arrived, the mother wasn’t ticketed for not using car seats. She wasn’t warned. She wasn’t fined. She wasn’t arrested. She didn’t get a visit from Child Protective Services. Based on those who witnessed the incident, she deserved all those things.

On a higher level, the mother enjoys another mercy; the mercy of being judged by a perfect God. One might think of mercy and judgment as polar opposites. By human definition, they usually are. We humans aren’t capable of being perfectly angry and perfectly just at the same time. My desire to see the mother given a ticket for her negligence, while justified, also contained a selfish desire to see her punished. While I would punish out of anger, God in His perfection will, in His time, judge from perfect love. While I cared more about the babies in the backseat than I did the mother, God loves the mother and the children equally.

Grace is receiving blessings we don’t deserve. The mother received more than showers of blessings. She received grace like Niagra Falls. Her son is still alive, even though he fell out of her moving car. He didn’t get run over. He didn’t get killed. Her other children didn’t fall out of the car when the door opened. In spite of her profound neglect, this mother received what she doesn’t deserve; a second chance. I wonder what she will do with it?

I’d like to believe that the mother will realize the danger in which she placed her children. I’d like to believe that she’ll jump on this second chance like a duck on a June bug. I’d like to believe that she’ll recognize the mercy and grace God gave to her in that terrifying moment, and that it will be a turning point in her life. But only God knows what she’ll do with her second chance.

Mercy means being spared the punishment we deserve. Grace means receiving blessings we don’t deserve. When grace and mercy meet, God often gives us a second chance. We can embrace it.

Or we can drive away.

“God does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” – Psalm 103:10-12

A pleasant discovery upon moving to the Phoenix valley was how much life exists in the desert. God has created a number of both plants and animals to thrive in this climate.

One enjoyable way to get some exercise during the months October through May, the time when it isn’t a gazillion degrees hot, is to hike in the Superstition Mountains. Besides getting away from the incessant noise of the city, it’s fascinating to get a close look at the plant life. The green bark of the Palo Verde trees. The rubbery feel of the jojoba leaves. The spiny needle tips of the agaves. Fiery orange blooms of the ocotillo. And if you’ve ever been in the desert after a rain, you’ll never forget the scent of greasewood in the air.

And there are cactus. The names describe them well. Chain Fruit Cholla. Strawberry Hedgehog. Fishhook Barrel. Clock-face Prickly Pear. A couple of my visiting friends have gotten a bit too close to some of the cactus. They learned the hard way that the plant is called “Jumping Cholla” for a reason.

To me, the most impressive cactus in the desert is the Saguaro. Carnegiea gigantea for you botanists. Like human beings, it is the only living species in its genus. The usual life span of the saguaro is between 150 and 200 years, yet the odds against these giant cactus becoming giant are more than great. A saguaro may produce as many as 40 million seeds in its lifetime while only one of these seeds will likely mature into a plant that outlives its parent. A saguaro fortunate to develop as a seedling will, at the age of 3 years, measure only one half an inch in height. They don’t bloom for the first time until they are about 50 years old, and grow their first arm around age 75.

A fascinating feature of the saguaro is the way it responds to being wounded. When a Gila Woodpecker or a Northern Flicker pecks through the thick waxy skin and hollows out a hole to make a nest, the saguaro seals that part of itself with a callus. It limits the damage and prevents decay from taking over the rest of the plant.

When it comes to the wounds in our life, we can all learn something from the saguaro. This giant cactus can’t stop woodpeckers and flickers from poking holes in its skin. Instead it seals the wound to keep from “bleeding to death”. Otherwise the wound would be allowed opportunity to decay. Necrosis would set in and eventually kill the plant.

We don’t have woodpeckers trying to poke holes in us. But we get wounded just the same. Life is rough and tumble. The Bible is right up front about that. It says in Psalm 34:19 that “Many are the afflictions of the righteous…”. Which is another way of saying that life is hard for even the kindest among us. Being a good person doesn’t make you immune from pain. We can’t control that. We’ve all been wounded.

We can’t always stop people from poking emotional holes in us. But we do have full control of our decision to treat, or not treat, our wound. Some of us are emotionally bleeding to death because we have chosen not to seal off our wound. Some of us are decaying from a wound inflicted on us many years ago. We’re playing the blame game, replaying in our mind the injustice done to us like a loop tape in a VCR. Blame and self-pity are drugs we’ve become addicted to. In the meantime, we look for some park ranger to feel sorry for us while we sit and decay, bitterly waiting for the woodpecker to come back and apologize.

Yet even if the woodpecker returns, full of remorse and contrition,  a hole is a hole. An apology might make us feel better, but a wound is a wound. When choose not to treat our emotional wound, we’re choosing not to grow.

Reality is that we won’t begin to heal until we decide to seal off the wounded area, limit the damage, and focus on growing up. There’s a reason 200 year old saguaros grow to be 200 years old. They don’t allow one woodpecker hole to determine their future.

How are you doing with your woodpecker holes? Are they sealed off? If you still have some open wounds, you’re not alone in your experience. God cares about you. And your wounds. With gentle grace and forgiveness, He wants to heal and seal; for the purpose of strong growth. God wants you to grow tall!

Sometime soon go for a hike out in the desert. Even if you have to hop a plane to get here, it’s worth it. Take a close look at the saguaros; these stately persevering creations of God. Run your fingers over a cactus callus and see the beauty of a century old plant that refuses to quit.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” – Psalm 34:18

The 20-something brother and sister were looking through a stack of Phoenix Suns shirts.

“Who knows? We’re buying for our mother. She’s really picky.”

“Don’t you have the “it’s from my daughter, I’m sure whatever it is I’ll love it” thing going for you?”

“You don’t know our mother.”

“So it’s more like, “You’re my daughter, you should know better” that you’re dealing with?”

“Exactly…This looks like the right size but if it shrinks it’ll be too tight and she’ll be upset. If I go a size bigger and guess wrong she’ll open it and say, “What’s this? Do you think I’m fat?”

The brother speaks. “She likes Diamondback stuff. Get her the World Series DVD. She and Dad can both enjoy that.”

“But that’s really more of a present for Dad. And we already got him a shirt. Which means Dad would be getting a gift and a half and Mom would just be getting half a gift.”

“So buy a shirt for her and the DVD for both of them and it’s even.”

“What if I get the wrong size?”

“She can always return it.”

“From Minneapolis?”

A few minutes later they left the store carrying the weight of Christmas present in a two-ply shopping bag.

The holiday music floating above our heads proclaims this a season of comfort and joy. A quick check of the facial expressions in any mall during the month of December and you’ll see that many of us aren’t buying it. Retailers do their biggest business around the holidays. So do counselors and psychologists. Stress and the holidays go together like red stripes and candy canes.

We open more than neatly wrapped packages at Christmas. We also open up the emotional boxes we’ve been stuffing in our closet all year. Or, perhaps more accurately, Christmas opens them for us. There’s something about Christmas that shines the light of reality on our relationships. Be they good, bad or ugly, we’re more aware of our perceived success or failure with others this time of year. And our awareness presents itself…in presents.

The preferred year-end relationship therapy of Americans is to buy something. The perfect gift, we tell ourselves, will make everything better. The perfect gift will communicate what I haven’t been able to say this year. The perfect gift will make up for all my mistakes. The perfect gift will reconcile me to the one who pulled away from me. Or to the one I pushed away.

On December 24th and 25th people from New York to Newport Beach will gather in living rooms and sit in front of fireplaces, anxiously waiting for their perfect gift to land on the lap of the one they love. Or the one we wish loved us. Or the one we’ve never been able to get along with and wish we could. Or the one we’ve been trying to please all our life. Or the one we hurt. Or the one who hurt us. Or the one who keeps us at a distance.

In a few days, many of us will live or die by the expression on another person’s face. Our success or failure depends on that microsecond flash of non-verbal feedback when they open our gift. If in their eyes we see happiness and affirmation, we win. If we don’t, we lose. Until that moment, our perfect gift sits under a tree like a time bomb and we’re praying it’s full of confetti.

For many of us, “the hopes and fears of all the years” are wrapped in ribbons and reindeer paper and sealed with Scotch tape. The perfect gift, we tell ourselves, will make everything better. It will break the communication log jam. It will be the key that opens the door to a locked heart. It will win us the approval we desperately seek. It will close the gap and heal the hurt. That’s an awful lot of weight to put on a cashmere sweater from Sak’s. Or a socket set from Sears.

There’s something about Christmas that shines the light of reality on our relationships. Some 2,000 years ago God shined His light on a broken, hopeless humanity. His preferred method of relational therapy was to give a Gift. And God knows all about the deep desire for a gift to be well-received. Every day He watches the eyes of His created humans for that expression of affirmation, that confirmation that His gift of forgiveness has been accepted. It’s the grandest gift money can’t buy. Accepted, it closes the gap, heals our hurts and heads us toward heaven.

That’s an awful lot of weight to put on the shoulders of a baby in a manger.

And that’s the miracle of God’s Christmas present.

“And the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all people; for unto you this day in the city of David is born a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you; you will find the baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” – Luke 2:10-12