HOW SHOULD YOU RECORD LIFE'S HURTS?

HOW SHOULD YOU RECORD LIFE’S HURTS?

Two African friends, Lesiba and Nomsa, were walking together on the edge of the Sahara Desert.  At some point in their journey, they had an argument, and Lesiba slapped her friend in the face.  Nomsa, who had gotten slapped, was feeling quite hurt.  Without saying a single word, she wrote in the sand, “Today my best friend, Lesiba, slapped me in the face.”

They kept on walking until they found an oasis; there they decided to take a bath.  Nomsa, who had been slapped, soon got stuck in quicksand and started sinking and drowning.  Naturally her friend, Lesiba, saved her life by pulling her out of that thick mire.  After she recovered from her near drowning experience, Nomsa wrote down on a stone, “Today my best friend, Lesiba, saved my life.”

Lesiba who had earlier slapped and later saved her best friend, Nomsa, asked this question: “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now, you write on a stone.  Why?”

Nomsa replied with a knowing smile, “When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand, where the winds of forgiveness can erase it, but when someone does something good for us, we must always engrave it in stone, so no wind can ever erase it.”

So learn to write your hurts in the sand and carve your blessings in stone.

-Author Unknown

Some people record the faults and failures of others on what I term an emotional abacus.*  That is, they keep a mental record of personal offenses, and this stored information influences their future dealings with other people.  However, the New Covenant constrains us to react to our hurts in a decidedly different way.  In the words of the Apostle Paul, love “does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (I Corinthians 13:5-7, NIV)  My friend, how is your love life?  If others were to examine your emotional abacus, would it reflect a ‘score tally’ of offenses, or blessings?

(*)  An abacus is a counting device that consists of a frame holding rods on which a specific number of beads are free to move about and record numerical values. (World English Dictionary)