Silver Boxes, Gifts of Encouragement (Part 2)

           Will I give silver boxes to those who’ve hurt me?

          Remember the classmate I mentioned in Part 1—the one who tormented me with a word that’s no longer even acceptable to use? Let me tell you what happened more than five decades later:

          When I “joined” Facebook in 2011, I thought about looking up this girl. That thought grew into a burden. I’d despised her previously, but no malice now. Just wondering if I would heal that memory if I found her.

          Would you believe I did? There she was on Facebook—plain as day. So, I wrote to her.

          Wonder of wonders, she responded. Not coldly. Instead, genuinely kind.

          As we corresponded over time, this girl shared about hardships in her life—ones I’d never realized. I ached for her although I still didn’t understand why she targeted me back in school; but now I saw she may’ve been “venting” some of what she endured.

          Then it happened. A reply I couldn’t even comprehend.

          This girl shared I was the only friend she had in school.

          Me? The one she called “retard?” Wow!

          I still can’t figure out the psychology behind all this (I basically failed that subject in college because I was…um, “learning-challenged”). But I’m smart enough to know something happened that magically changed when this girl shared her thoughts with me.

          I hadn’t realized what I meant to that girl. I didn’t even try back then. Mostly I dodged corners when I saw her coming. But somehow, she interpreted something I did as being a friend.

          Weird!

          These decades later, as the girl and I exchanged chat messages, a trust grew. Mine. Apparently not hers because she already thought I was a friend.

          Wild!

          So, the time came I was able to share Jesus with this hurting girl—now lady—who, by the way, still suffered from the effects of her childhood-carried-into-adulthood trauma. She graciously received a Bible from me. And she’s responded positively to prayers I cried out on her behalf through typed words.

          I apparently gave this former classmate a silver box way-back-when. She unknowingly gave one back to me. And now I’d been able to give her another—God’s Silver Box, the most important of all but also the means by which she was able to see me as a friend long ago and accept His Word now.

          Wonderful!

 

How I praise Thee, precious Savior, that Thy love laid hold of me;

Thou hast saved and cleansed and filled me that I might Thy channel be.

 

(Refrain) Channels only, blessed Master, but with all Thy wondrous pow’r

Flowing through us, Thus canst use us every day and every hour.

 

Just a channel full of blissing, to the thirsty hearts around’

To tell out Thy full salvation, all Thy loving message sound. (Refrain)

 

Emptied that Thou shouldest fill me, a clean vessel in Thy hand;

With no pow’r but as Thou givest graciously with each command. (Refrain)

 

Witnessing Thy pow’r to save me, setting free from self and sin’

Thou who boughtest to possess me, in Thy fullness, Lord, come in. (Refrain)

 

Jesus, fill now with Thy Spirit hearts that full surrender know;

That the streams of living water from our inner self may flow. (Refrain)

 

(from the hymn, Channels Only, by Mary E. Maxwell, 1900, public domain)

 

 

#encouragingwords #channelsonly #friendship #silverboxes #bullying #beingJesuswithskinon #HolyBible

 

 

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