Brute Beast

Psalm 73:21-24
When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.

My dear friend, the one I’ve been getting moved into Assisted Living, has Alzheimer’s. I had seen her from afar many times, and her name is infamous around our church. Why, you ask? Because she’s mean. There’s just no other way to put it. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the Alzheimer’s, but that really doesn’t matter – she’s still mean. She was a part of my Bible Study, and was creating so many problems with the group she was a part of that they were going to ask her to leave. I was in turmoil.

That night, I sensed God telling me that this was not what He wanted. He laid it upon my heart, that night, to be her friend – for how long? – until the end. I wrestled with Him over it, because I knew of her reputation, and being one that is not very good at standing up for myself, I figured she would walk all over me and I would come out crying and bruised.

Again, God was very clear. He is not a “three-strikes and your out” sort-of God, how could I be that way? And when I thought of the way she treated people, I felt God say to me, “now you know how I feel.” OUCH! Yes, I have been mean to God. I have said and done some awful things (I really hate to even admit all of this). Yet, He sticks with me. He forgives me. He loves me. He holds my hand, and doesn’t hold previous wrongs against me. Despite my meanness, He is still crazy about me – I don’t know why.

He was asking me to do the same. Ah, Agape love – giving without receiving. Loving them not because they deserve it, but because they need it.

I am seeing in Betty a reflection of myself, and that is a very difficult lesson to swallow, being that she is not very well-liked. But I am learning so much from her, and God is using her to show me the ugliness that is tucked away in my heart. If God can “put-up” with me, then surely I can do the same for one of His dearly loved children. All the while, he is blessing me abundantly through this relationship in ways I never could have imagined, through I never would have received any other way.

My “brute beast” is being tamed by another beast, and in the end, we will both be taken into glory! Hallelujah!!