Traveling the Rock Road

I haven’t felt good the last few days so I’m not writing my typical blog story, but I felt compelled to have something since I made reference to this week in my last story “Lucky?”

As I have mentioned several times in the past, I grew up in an abusive lifestyle at the hands of my great-uncle and I hated it, and in turn I hated him for what he did to me. Even years after this man died the thought of him would bring anger and animosity to my very soul causing the hurt to return once more, only mentally which can be just as painful, if not more, than that of physical abuse. Even though he was gone he would often abuse me once again, only this time it was not by what he was doing, but what I was doing, in other words remembering and reliving the cruelty all over again. With the help of others, especially my Lady, and the guidance of the Lord through prayer and the Word, I found the key to finally escaping the brutal hand of this; and that key, forgiveness.

“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. It was when I realized that what I needed to do for my Great-Uncle, Jesus had already done for me, forgive. C.S. Lewis puts it like this; “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”

It wasn’t easy and it took more than once, perhaps more than a hundred times, but God finally gave me peace and forgiveness toward this man; the hate and the hurt was finally gone! Now this would be a good place to end the story, another leg of “Traveling the Rock Road” completed; only there’s one more twist and turn on this trek of life trail.

Over the years as I’ve thought of this man, I often asked the question of myself whether there is anything positive I can point to that I got from him. Could I say to someone, “Yeah, he was cruel, but I did learn this from him.” Sadly, to no avail; there wasn’t one positive quality I could pinpoint, so I prayed. “God please show me something good I can say about my Uncle, if for no other reason then at least to help with healing.” Then it came to me, something very important I missed entirely.

Philippians 3:13 says;    “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,”

One person put it this way; “Mistakes have the power to turn you into something better than you were before.”

What came to me was not what my Uncle did, but what he didn’t do. It goes without saying I did not like his actions, it was wrong how he treated me and other people for that matter. He never taught me the right way to treat others, but I learned anyway by doing the opposite. Lewis wrote that we all have the ability to understand right and wrong instinctively, it was then up to us what we did with it. For me I chose to learn right from an injustice. As the years went on and Cathy and I raised a family, I made every effort to treat them in a way they would want from dad, with love.

I used to tell them “Take anything that I’ve done wrong and make it right, take what I’ve done right, and make it better.”

That’s all I had to say tonight. I hope I made the point I wanted to.

Remember there’s no hurt that God can’t heal in your life, and forgive in others–the decision is yours. As the movies say, “Choose Wisely.”

See Ya Soon!!