Excellent message, Phil!  Thanks!

Helen

At 09:23 AM 12/22/03 -0700, you wrote:
>I would like to think, being the fine Godly Christian man that I am, tongue
>in cheek, that I would always do the right thing and always make the right
>decisions when faced with any circumstance that comes my way.  Yet, I have
>not always made the right decision and I definitely have not always acted
>Christian when faced with certain situations.  We are in the midst of a huge
>family mess right now in which accusations have been made that are totally
>false.  It would appear that no matter how much explanations were made, the
>misunderstanding wants to stay in place.  For example, last night I was
>accused of something I not only never thought but never even said.
>Unfortunately for me, one thing I hate more than any other, is being accused
>falsely and especially of something, as I said, I never even thought, let
>alone said.  My reaction?  It wasn't anything remotely Christian in nature;
>I can tell you that much for sure and it wasn't pretty.  The experience
>Kathy mentioned earlier about something one of her children turned and used
>against her?  What she described is small potatoes when compared to what I
>am talking about.  I would explain it all to you, that is, the story and all
>that has happened, but it would take days to read that email message if I
>did write it all down.  Plus, it hasn't happened once but dozens of times.
>Regardless, my point stands.  We can talk Christian all we want and tote the
>big black Bible to church every Sunday and say Amen in the appropriate
>places and sing at the top of our lungs and shake the preacher's hand on the
>way out the door but let somebody, your own family for example, accuse you
>and use you and then say it is all your fault when you have literally done
>absolutely nothing, then let me know how you reacted to what happened.  You
>may say you know what's right and you may believe it with all your heart and
>you may fully intend to always do what's right but watch one of your own
>children accuse and misuse his own mother and then turn around and blame her
>for the whole thing, and see how calmly your Christian character comes into
>play.  I have been blind for 39 years.  I have lived totally on my own,
>without my family's help, for 32 of those 39 years.  I have been accused of
>everything, during those years, by family members, and others outside the
>family, of being bitter, of feeling sorry for myself, of being too narrow
>minded, of being a liar, of being insensitive, of being too sensitive, of
>being lazy, of being unchristian, and just about anything else you want to
>toss on to the pile.  That was just my family.  I won't even get into people
>outside the family and what they have said.  The nature of such
>relationships is such that these things create pain and anger and sometimes
>fear and a lot of other things.  Being the fine Christians that we are, we
>bury these things because Godly people do exactly that.  Or so we are taught
>to live.  Unfortunately, repressing and suppressing these things doesn't
>help because years later, when another conflict arises, it stirs up those
>old memories and flames them right back into life again.  I know because I
>have had this happen to me so many times over the years, there is no way to
>keep track of them all.  I know one thing for sure; they all hurt.  Have you
>ever tried to get somebody to understand something only to discover they not
>only did not understand or comprehend but didn't want to in the first place?
>I explained something three or four times to someone last night who still
>said he didn't get it.  Why?  Because if he said he understood it, he would
>have been wrong and he did not want to be wrong.  Christmas is a wonderful
>family trigger.  If you don't think the Enemy works overtime during the
>Christmas season, you are in for a surprise.  I would love to say something
>about this time concerning demonic activities in such things but people
>already think I am a devil hunter and find a demon under every rock.  So I
>will forego the spiritual darkness behind all such conflicts.  Regardless,
>I'm just pointing out that any situation can press a Christian into reacting
>and responding in ways they wouldn't normally.  I'm sure glad we serve a God
>who cuts us a lot of slack because people don't.
>
>Phil.