While Cooking…

I was peeling potatoes thinking about a conversation I had with my brother the previous night.

My brother was in town for business and as always, he stayed with me. When he left, he paid my son to clean the room and bathroom. I was neither at home when my brother left nor aware of the deal that was made.

When I came home and saw the room looking the way it did, I was HOT!!! But I decided not to respond just yet. A couple of days passed with me forgetting until my husband said, “that room is a mess!” I got fired up about it again! I will be honest, ugly words came out of my mouth. I decided I better text so that I would not get out of control. I even enlisted my sister to help me with my words.

I sent the text and waited. My brother apologized and then told me I should have called him instead of sending a text. He told me I was being “passive aggressive.” I told him I was wanting him to read my seriousness since my “chastisement” of him is usually met with “that’s just Crystal being a hell raiser.”

In the exchange is when he told me he was trying to put some money in my son’s pocket! He paid my son to clean the room!!!

Can you say EMBARRASSED!?!

Can you say ASHAMED!?!

Can you say GUILT?!?

Can you say REMORSE!?!

I IMMEDIATELY jumped to thinking the worst about my brother! I immediately jumped to blaming him for doing me wrong and treating my mother better. Then I had the nerve to enlist someone to get on my side and without looking at the other side. There are always two sides but let us seek to understand the other side! You will be enlightened and get to the truth!

I am so glad my brother treats me better than I treat him! He always overlooks my fault, laughs it off and says “no worries.” He has probably built up a mechanism or process for dealing with his big sister that helps him overlook me when I am in rant mode. I hope you caught that.

While peeling the potatoes, I was overcome with emotion because I was peeling some bruised ones. They had spots and blemishes; I was peeling them away to make the potato edible. I looked at that potato and said, “This is me.” I teared up. I was praying and crying, “Lord, peel away the ugly spots in me! Peel away the bruises in me! Why was it so easy for me to “think” the worst of my brother? My first son. A man I love with all my heart. A man I would lay my life down for.”

If it was easy for me to think the worst of man I love more than life itself, how much easier is it for me to think the worst of someone I don’t even know. Someone with a different story. Someone with a different future.

Our hearts are deceitful. Jeremiah 17:9 says,

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”

My prayer for us is Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”

Lord, purify our hearts to see YOUR child, made in your image, the way you see them. Lord, you don’t look at anyone and say, “I hate you or I don’t like you!” You don’t think the worst of us. You always see the best in us!

Marvin Sapp sang,

He saw the best in me

When everyone else around

Could only see the worst in me.

Lord thank you for seeing the best in me! Lord transform me! Renew my mind with your word!

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2

Transform and help me see the best in EVERYONE.

In Jesus Name, Amen!