I’m told the story is true. One woman sued her husband for divorce. She told the judge she had nagged and nagged, but she couldn’t get him to do right.
The judge wondered if she had tried using kindness. Referring to the biblical passage which says that when we show kindness to our enemy it is like heaping “burning coals on his head,” he asked her if she had tried heaping coals on his head.
She answered, “No, but I don’t think it will work. I already tried scalding water and that didn’t do any good.”
I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
But who hasn’t felt frustrated with another? Who hasn’t wanted to strike out more than reach out? But revenge is never as sweet as we imagine it to be. And besides, when we fight fire with fire, everybody is likely to get burned.
You may have seen signs prohibiting weapons. And isn’t the most dangerous weapon, and one which we all own, our tongue? We have painfully experienced the damaging power of words. Unkindness of any form can bite and sting and do devastating damage.
Next time you get upset, try retaliating in kindness, not in kind. Turn your anger into an assault of good will. Use your tongue as an instrument of peace.
It is the only way we will heal the world.
--Steve Goodier
