One Stray Sheep

SMALL TOWN


I grew up in a small town in the South. Until I turned nine, we lived in a small yellow house beside my grandparents. At that time, my mother was a hair dresser as they used to be called and my dad sold insurance. That was back when the insurance agents literally went from house to house to collect premiums. More often than not, my dad would pay for someone's premium out of his own pocket because the person could not afford to. Neither could we! My dad used to race motorcycles back then and there was always a lot of his biker friends hanging out at our house. Everyone was nice to me. I remember one of them gave me a puppy one day. You never forget people who give you pets. My dad had plenty of friends back then but this one guy sticks in my memory. I don't even remember what he looked like. I just remember the copper colored puppy he gave me that I called Red. I think it is important to keep in mind that as humans we affect each other with our behavior towards each other. God calls us to love one another and I believe the reason it is so important is because when you have love coming at you from different sources, it will stack up like food for the winter. Like I have said before, I was unequipped for many years against Satan but I believe the good people here on Earth who have influenced me or prayed for me brought me through. So I don't think we should ever underestimate the small ways we show people love. And I am not talking about your spouse or your immediate family or friends. Although it is important to treat these people with love, I feel that it is even more important to reach out to people outside of your immediate circle. The smallest gesture can affect someone. That also goes for small gestures of anger or rudeness. Think of the brain as a tape recorder and the heart as a flower. A person's brain basically records all events in their lives, everything they consciously experience. It records the good along with the bad. Then the event is sent to the flower where it either waters it or withers it. All events do this and as you can imagine, person to person experiences will ultimately have the most profound effects. If you are in a car wreck and injured slightly, you will heal from the experience after some time. But if you have someone speak to you in an abusive or cruel way, it will engrave itself into memory. I know it is true because we get upset even if we have a confrontation with a complete stranger. That conversation will literally stay with us for months. And you know if something like that stays on the tip of your tongue for that kind of time, it is permanently on our tape recorder even if on the surface, we forget about it. That is because we get our feelings hurt. You
can call it whatever you want to. You can call it ego, temper, or dignity- it still boils down to our feelings. And the problem with hurting someone's feelings is this: you run the risk of setting that person up for Satan's schemes. I can remember being very small and playing in my great grandmother's back yard. She would have white sheets hung out on the line to dry. I would run through the middle of them and I could smell the fresh clean scent. That memory is there forever in a good way. The flower grows. I also remember my dad singing "You are my sunshine" to me all the time as a kid. That is a great memory locked in my heart forever. The flower grows and blooms. Having my ex-husband call me profane words because I did not wash his socks- damaging. This is because even though I knew deep down that he was wrong, Satan chimed in. I began to believe that I was unworthy of anything better than that. So the flower withers. Be careful how you treat people. And also remember that when someone treats you unfairly, the best revenge is quick forgiveness. This disarms Satan and his plan before he gets a foothold and changes your destiny. Not the person who hurt you, your destiny. I want to say something on forgiveness for a second. When you decide to forgive someone who has hurt you, this action is between you and God. All of our actions are indeed between us and the Lord. If you think of it that way, it may be easier to understand that forgiveness is vital. In life, we should always strive to do what we know is the right thing to do because ultimately, we answer to God for every decision. We do not answer for others. That is comforting in itself to realize that when someone hurts you, they will answer for it. You may not be there as you would like to be to witness it of course but that doesn't matter. We need to take comfort in the fact that people answer for the wrong they do in this life. This should also make us realize that we too will be held accountable for our actions. 2 Corinthians 5:10 says:
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.