What's in that Box?

Come join me this morning on this bench that overlooks the ocean...yes-- right here next to the tulips and daffodils. Ahh, just breath the salty air and listen to the plaintive seagull's cry. It's so quiet here, I thought it would be the perfect place to talk. I want to tell you about something strange that happened to me...


Do you remember how I've been telling you that I'm cleaning out my place? Getting rid of things I've held on to  for years and years; honestly, I think I've kept some of that junk for decades!


Well the other day I was looking through my closet and I found a beat-up cardboard box buried under a bunch of stuff. I'd long since forgotten what was in it ...but I remembered moving it from house to house over the years-- always looking for an out-of-the-way spot to stash it away.  So this week I decided to take a peek inside. The box was heavy; way too bulky for me to lift. First I had to remove all of the things that were stacked on top of it. Then I got out a box knife and carefully cut the yellowed tape that held it shut. It was musty and stank of age, and the accumulated dust made me cough and sneeze.

Well you can imagine my surprise when I saw that the box contained axe-heads! Several of them. And here's the odd part-- each one had a name taped to it. Some were relatives' names. Some were friends or business aquaintances from long ago.


I took one of the axe heads out of the box and looked it over carefully. The name on it was from childhood.  Yeah, I remembered them...they weren't very nice to me when I was a little girl...painfully memories flooded my heart and mind. I pulled another one out. Beth-Ann ______, it said. A former business aquaintance...she'd cheated me out of some commissions I'd worked really hard to get. What a greedy, manipulative witch! Bitterness...anger...resentment was just pulsing through my veins.


After reading a few more names, it became very apparent to me that every axe-head bore the name of someone who had hurt me.


Aha! Now I knew! These were axes that I had to grind...that's what they were! Even though I thought I'd done a pretty good job of burying them in my closet...here they were, taking up valuable space in my life... and even after all these years I was feeling all of those same toxic emotions that had come with the intial offense. This was awful! Why, oh why, was I holding on to this stuff?


I knew I needed to get rid of them, but they were sooo heavy. I wondered how would I dispose of this toxic mess? I called my friend Jesus for advice.


"I'll take them away for you," he assured me. "But there's one thing you have to do."
"Forgive them."
"But how can I forget..."
"I said forgive...not forget."
"But they were wrong..."
"Yes, they were. Forgiving doesn't make them right; it cuts their connection to you."


I knew he was right. So I forgave them all. And you'll never guess what happened...a marvelous thing! When I went back to the closet to check the box...it was gone! Disappeared! In it's place was a beautiful robe that smelled like lilies of the valley with a note that read...


Dear Debora,


"The Lord hath appointed me...to give{you}beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness..." 
                                                                                        
 Love,
Jesus.      (Isaiah 61:3)




So I don't know when you last checked your closets. But if you should find a cumbersome box full of axes to grind, you might want to give Jesus a call. I'm just sayin...