Choose Love

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone *

We moved to a small village, which offered absolutely nothing for entertainment, unless the corner store counted. When my children scoped out the tiny neighborhood and found other children lived around the corner, I felt ecstatic. Little kids had parents, of course, which equated to potential friends for me. We wasted no time introducing ourselves and quickly became great friends. None of my family lived in the state and my new friends Sam and Julie had similar scenarios. Well, Sam's family lived across the country and Julie's lived a couple hours away, but they were weird. Very weird.

Sam and Julie were excellent parents, lovely people and we grew as close as family. We shared our joys, accomplishments, tears, illnesses, sorrows - good times and bad together. I would have never guessed Julie had lived through a horrid abusive childhood. She told me how her father tormented her and her sister, but only on rare occasion her brothers. She described how he attached electrical wires to the bed to jolt her sister if she wet her pants during the night. He used fear of snakes to manipulate, threw bugs on them, fired shotguns, withheld food, and molested Julie for years before finally raping her. She never whispered a word to her mom about the sexual abuse, but wondered why her mother didn't offer more protection for her and her siblings from the other abuses.

We sipped many cups of tea over long venting sessions, which brought peace and healing. Never once did Julie express hate toward her parents. In fact, she lamented the loss of a real relationship with them. She mourned when she learned of her mother's cancer diagnosis and felt cheated when she lost the short battle with it. She mourned that her father would be alone. She worried when circumstances forced him to sell the property and move. She made phone calls to her parents over the years trying to reach out.

I marveled that Julie didn't choose a path of unresolved anger nor did she allow it to destroy her joy. Instead, she chose healing. She chose forgiveness, though her parents never asked for it. She demonstrated how to overcome evil with good and lived to love. How much brighter the world would be today if more of us could shatter darkness with the light of love as opposed to allowing misfortune, affliction, abuse or ______(fill in the blank) to breed hate.


* Quoted from Regina Brett's 45 life lessons and 5 to grow on