I must have spent a couple of hours on the phone this night with a very dear and special friend. I am going to exclude her name out of respect for her privacy. We talked about so many things all starting with our discussion and similar love for Heath, my son. The stories that she shared with me about her own personal experiences made me think about how similar her experience is everywhere else with many other people. She is a beautiful young lady that has had her troubled past. She went through a lot, lost a lot, and for the most part was all alone. She started attending her church on a regular basis and became active in its youth program. On Mondays, this church had meetings for people that were dealing with and or recovering from drug addictions. The group was built on a circle of trust, people feeling they could open up and share their most guarded personal experiences and not be judged but forgiven, encouraged, and helped. She had her own Lil youth group in time and was doing everything in her power to guide them in the right direction. She was so loved that even the pastors’ daughter would confide in her before she would her own father. This young lady was doing everything every God-fearing Christian has prayed for others to do most every day. Then one day a roomer came back to her. One of the other church members cut her down like trash because she saw one of her many tattoos. That lady even complained to the pastor who himself was a recovering addict adorned with tattoos and had just spoken to her about having his own reworked. Yet he listened to and even condoned the complaints from one of the other church members about this young lady that had come so far and felt all she had in the world was her church family. They betrayed her trust, they tried to break her spirit, and they sat back and watched as she left the church never to return. Her heart hurts because she felt she was making such a difference in the lives of the young people she spent so much time with, and she is no longer a part of their lives. After I heard her story I suggested she write it down and show up in that church walk up to that podium with her head held high and tell her story, point fingers, and call out the names of those that chastised her. Let them see how it feels and maybe they will take a second look at their Christianity. When my son died and I stood over him in his casket in tears I was told that wasn’t my son, it was no more than a vessel in which his soul occupied until it was no longer needed because his soul now resides in heaven. If our bodies are no more than vessels that our souls occupy why is it that so many use the appearance of those bodies to judge us? Why is it that very few take time to see that soul within? Why is it that so many beautiful souls are lost every day because people fail to see them for what and who they truly are? Society complains every day about those that have made mistakes or that are different from what most feel is normal and not contributing to our society. Why do you suppose that is? It is because society will not allow them to. They turn their backs on them, deny them jobs, deny them the love, trust, and respect they earned and yearn for. Society wishes to teach them a lesson and in doing so they themselves fail miserably at living the lessons they teach. The news discusses every day about the tragic shootings in our schools. Ban the guns; create stricter gun laws, if he didn’t have access to those guns it would have never happened. Wrong….wrong….wrong. A gun never jumps out of a cabinet loads itself and walks down the street killing people. People kill people, not only with guns but with sticks, cars, phones, alcohol, I can go on and on. It’s people that need to be looked at. It’s the way we treat people, push them, reject them, and bully them that breaks them down. Before you start thinking about what someone else needs to do to get right, you might want to stand in front of a mirror and get yourself right first. Live a Life That Matters
Simply my thoughts
Dean Butler
