Christian Living

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Which List Do You Remember the Most?
by Dan Langerock

A story tells that two friends were walking through the desert. During some point in the journey, they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, he wrote in the sand: "Today, my best friend slapped me in the face".

They kept walking until they found an oasis where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but his friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone: 'Today, my best friend saved my life".

The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now you write on a stone, why? He replied, "When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand where the winds of forgiveness can erase it away, but when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone, where no wind can ever erase it." Author Unknown

Unfortunately, those closest to us relationally often are the ones who hurt us the most. Because our emotions are involved, we naturally don't always respond in the proper way to hurts. The human heart wants to keep going over and over what was done to it for years to come. I have seen this happen in the hospital setting as a chaplain when I visit with people. One man I talked to didn't know where his son was after years of estrangement from him over some disagreement.

We usually don't think about needing someone later on in life, but then it is often too late to remedy. In the heat of the moment, we say or do the wrong thing, and a relationship is ruined, perhaps forever. When people have gone through so much in their lives, it is often hard for them to see the blessings that are there to be thankful for. It is as if they have written their blessings in the sand and their hurts on stone, the opposite of what this story suggests.

What would you rather have to reflect upon at the end of your life: all the hurts that have happened during your lifetime or a list of blessings that came your way? The list you keep will help determine the status of your health and the quality of your relationships.

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