Still working on love...

Let brotherly love continue: yeah that is easy—when life is good and the relationship is healthy, but what about when abuse takes place. I mean what kind of loving god allows that stuff anyway.

I have friends in Delaware that shared their story with me not too long ago. Her brother had just recently passed away, but he was not one of the good guys so the story was hard to tell yet revealing about how we can grow past even the most awful situation as we find our place with God secure. 

The story is one of a great looking guy that was clever and sociable to the point of “able to sell ice to an Eskimo“. He married at 16, had lovely babies and home but the path went from successful looking to the life of an alcoholic drug addict that abused his family in unspeakable ways both physically and sexually. When it came his time to die it was almost a relief to family that knew the truth of the story. This was one of the scars I mentioned a couple of weeks back. 

The time came to scatter the ashes on the Atlantic shore and the memories that flew by in my friends’ conversation were in the end reminders of love rather than the hate deserved. Memories of a life wasted and ruined leaving ashes in his wake. The reminder that good looks, money, influence and talent are not what really matter in the life is ended. 

The story as I got it went like this: “My wife and I stood on the shore's edge together. The only ones present were her nephew (the son now fully grown and living hand to mouth), her baby brother and his wife, and myself. Well, we also had the ashes of her dead brother in a plastic container enclosed in a clear plastic bag. Missing were his wife, his daughter, his mother, his dad and step mom, and a host of people who claimed to be his friend (as long as he could supply the drugs, booze, and women).”

He continued: “We each said a few memories about him and the son struggled to open the bag. Soon he had the ashes thrown to the wind to be carried into the water's caress. A gray cloud of mucky remains floated on the waves and mingled with water and the sandy bottom. The son cried, "You're free now... you're free!" With that we left and returned to the car and headed back to my father-in-law's home.”

Yet even knowing that her brother was such a rotten person my friends’ thoughts had turned earlier to the question of what about eternity. Despite the pain and hurt of the years it was a ‘brotherly love that overrode it all and her prayer was that somehow maybe, just maybe before it was too late the love that had come to her own life from Jesus would somehow find a place in her brother’s life and death.

Not sure I am able to be that way just yet, but my prayer is that I grow to that kind of love. Jesus the incarnate God came for the sake of love for you and me, yet I struggle some days to model it well. How is it in your life?

Stay tuned,

Rev. Jon Bergen