June 1 - Miriam

Good day!  Today's reading from the One Year Bible Chronological Reading Plan is Proverbs 17-19.

Scripture
Proverbs 17:9 - He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.

Observation
Everybody makes mistakes.  Sooner or later a friend or family member will say or do something that hurts your feelings or makes you angry.  How we handle that situation obviously affects our own relationship with that person, but it can also affect the relationships around us.

Application
To love is to forgive.  1 Corinthians 13:5 says "{Love} keeps no record of wrongs."  Yet how often do you hear of couples, or siblings, or children and parents who keep bringing up past mistakes or problems or misdeeds each and every time they have a disagreement?  How often do you hear of close friends or family members who have a falling out over something and neither one will forgive or ask forgiveness? 

I'm not saying it's easy to do.  It can be a very hard thing to do, especially if you feel you were wronged and the other person doesn't feel they have anything for which they should apologize or make amends.  But the tricky thing about forgiveness is that it is often more beneficial to the person who is doing the forgiving than to the one who is forgiven.  Holding a grudge is a poison that affects not only the person holding it, but those around them.  Especially if you talk to other people about the situation.  At times, this spoils the relationship between the other person and the person who was told all the sordid details, but at other times it spoils your relationship with these other people. 

Speaking ill of someone can make you look worse than it does the other person.  I don't know how many of you watch The Amazing Race.  If you watched this past season, you'll remember "the models" and "the lesbians".  (These are not my descriptions - this is how they referred to each other on the show.  And I can't remember their names.)  These two teams disliked each other almost from the beginning, mainly because "the lesbians" made some unpleasant comments about the female member of "the models" early on and these comments were repeated to them.  Later on in the season, "the models" exercised their right to delay another team and chose "the lesbians" out of personal dislike, even though "the lesbians" were already behind with little hope of catching up.  Not the nicest thing to do, but it was within the rules of the game.  "The lesbians" proceeded to insult the other team repeatedly on camera for the remainder of the time they were on the show and also in their post-elimination interview.  They made themselves look much worse than they made "the models" look.  They were sore losers, vindictive and bitter.  I thought at the time "I hope when they're watching this back, they realize how awful they sound."  And then the other day I ran into a friend in the store, we got to talking about someone we both know, and before I knew it, I was relating to her a situation that happened several years ago already that I thought I was long past.  And then I felt like a jerk afterwards for having told this person the story when it happened such a long time ago and had nothing to do with her.  Normally, this is something I try very hard not to do.  I've said that I forgive, I've asked God for his help in forgiving, but apparently I still hold some ill feelings.  Something to work on. 

I'm very sad to say I've seen more examples of these things in my own extended family and also my husband's family.  And even if neither party tells anyone else what is going on, the tension can be enough to make other people start looking at each other and wondering what's up.  

Prayer
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank and praise you for your love - love that never fails, love that always forgives when we ask, and love that keeps no record of wrongs.  Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love you with all our heart, soul and mind and to love our neighbour as ourselves.  Loving our neighbours isn't always an easy thing to do, especially when we feel that the other person has wronged us in some way.  I pray that you would help us to remember that covering wrongs promotes love.  Help us as we forgive those who wrong us.  Help us to be humble enough to ask forgiveness when we've wronged someone else.  Help us when we do have disagreements with others to stick to the issue at hand and not throw past mistakes back at them.  We thank you for your gifts of grace and of the Holy Spirit - we pray that we would remain fruitful branches, bearing the fruits of the Spirit, the first of which is love.  In Jesus' Name we pray, Amen.