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    How does it feel when you hurt someone unintentionally?

    How does it feel when you are hurt unintentionally?

    These cuts still hurt, even if they aren’t meant to. We all find ourselves giving and receiving cuts like this, from time to time. We can all be senseless, thoughtless, and sometimes just too tired to think about what we say or do. Only later do we realize how powerfully damaging our words and actions have been.

    On the other hand, Jesus says we are to FORGIVE those who wound us. Yes, it’s a powerful word, and the surest medicine for unintended hurts, both for the offender and the wounded. Jesus said forgive seventy times seven and beyond. In other words, we are to forgive as God has forgiven us. Whew! That’s a challenge. Let’s see how that works.

    My poor brother! How did he survive growing up with me in his life? Only two years younger than I, yet how did he turn out so functional and successful? We almost killed each other several times.

    My brother Phil survived farm life, dog bites, angry roosters, catching his foot in a grinder, and the daily struggles of living with me. I got the top bunk, he got the bottom. I was usually well, he had a nervous stomach. I was older and got all the stuff first, Phil took what was second. Both of us thought our younger brother Brian got all the really good stuff. Mom and Dad had three boys to deal with, and somehow lived to see us grown and gone.

    I nearly killed Phil once, quite accidentally. We were visiting grandparents in Indianola, Oklahoma. The town was prosperous early in the 20th century, but when we visited in the early 1960s, it had dwindled to an old post office, gas station, Bynum’s grocery, and the Drug Store.

    Phil and I were standing in the ruins of an old stone building, trying to chunk rocks on the second story roof of the next building. The roof was pretty tall for an eight year old and a six year old. Most of our rocks skipped off the side of the building. All was well till I picked up a broken shard of glass, and heaved it toward the roof. It barely clipped the edge of the roof, and shot back down at an angle, and clipped my brother on the side of his head severing a blood vessel.

I was praying for salvation, for deliverance!

    “You cut me!” he screamed. We both screamed. We ran to the drugstore where mom and dad were visiting with Obed, the old pharmacist, and THEY screamed. I was one babbling crying eight year old, confessing every sin, and praying for salvation; for DELIVERANCE from the guilt of cutting my brother.

    Obed took us to the back room of this ancient pharmacy. It was obvious no prescriptions had been filled in this dark dusty storeroom since the turn of the century. There were dusty medical books, cobwebs, a stuffed crow, and, no kidding, a human skull! Uncorking some dark bottle of unmarked potion, Obed dressed my brother’s cut — it really wasn’t all that bad, it just bled a lot like head cuts often do. Affixing a special bandage to the cut, Obed pronounced Phil cured. My relief was immeasurable!

    We all settled into the car, and Indianola disappeared from our rear view mirror. I stared at my brother. He sat bolt upright in the seat. His turkey neck Adam’s apple was bobbing with an occasional swallow. He looked steadily forward with the “thousand yard stare” of someone who’d seen battle. He occasionally glanced at me with confusion and betrayal on his face and a quivering lower lip. “How could you do such a thing?” the look said. “How could you do this, even as an accident?” Finally, he began to hum, sing, and then we told jokes. The cutting event was over. I had been Forgiven.

    What a great word forgiveness is. We all KNOW much of the Bible’s teaching on forgiveness. The hard part is to PRACTICE what we know.

    Today, perhaps, you have hurt someone unintentionally. Communicate to them your sorrow for hurting them and stress that it was unintentional. Then, forgive yourself, and ask God to forgive you.

    Today, perhaps, someone has hurt you. Don’t deny the hurt, FORGIVE. Don’t pretend it didn’t hurt, FORGIVE. Don’t let it swelter into bitter resentment that settles into a hardened heart, FORGIVE. Literally, for God’s sake, when you give or receive the “unkindest cut of all,” accept, acknowledge, and FORGIVE and ask to be forgiven. After all, a buddy to hum, sing, and tell jokes with is always more fun than a bitter rival with a broken heart and a quivering lower lip!

    Phil and Brian, my brothers, if you read this, I want to thank you for a lifetime of FORGIVENESS.