It's an old saying that the older you get the faster time goes by. It also appears to be true that having children (and then grandchildren) brings that reality close to the surface!
At Christmas I sent cell phone pictures of our family Christmas party to my son, who was in California celebrating Christmas with his father who hadn't seen my side of the family for about eighteen years. Zach text messaged back to me "send more pics", because his father wanted to see all of the kids, who now have big kids of their own! It is sort of amazing to think about all that time that's flown by in the past eighteen years.
I was married to Zach's dad for 16 years, if you count the two years we were separated before the final decree came through. It's been 18 years since he moved away and quit participating in our family events.
Its sort of amazing how your perceptions change over the years. My perception of relationships is that one should always remain "friends" unless the other person in the relationship was just plain evil. I hold no animosity for Zach's father, nor for hardly any other person with whom I've been involved over the past. There are some people I'd really rather not have back in my life because they were utlimately losers. Others were people who lacked a spirit of optimism. But I have a universal sort of love for all people, and look upon nearly all others as friends. That is, except for a couple of people who were just evil incarnate, and I don't hate them, I just stay as far away as possible from them! I don't have any animosity for them, believing as I do they will ultimately cause their own downfall. I don't ever believe in "getting even" with anyone for anything. My mother taught me long ago that God arranges for the revenge, and He will ultimately allow you to witness the downfall of the evil ones.
An instance I recall particularly is the man who sold us our pony. She had been foundered, which for non-farmers means she had eaten too much grain and gotten sick. It caused her to have problems throughout her life, one of which was that her hooves grew out enormously and had to be trimmed quite often. It caused her to walk funny. Another of her problems was that she had a strange growth in her mane, and her neck was very heavy and her mane fell over funny. My dad had traded a couple of pigs for the pony. I asked my mom why we didn't "do something about the man's cheating us." She said "God will get him." And He did. It took quite a while for it to happen. When the man sold us the pony he was a very handsome young man. By the time God got him however, his appearance had changed drastically...he was old, bald and toothless. And in jail. He was arrested for mistreatment of animals. His farm had been raided and all of his animals confiscated. Among them were bunches of ponies that had been badly treated. It was on the front page of the newspaper. He was standing there with his pot-belly hanging out, hands behind him in cuffs, surrounded by ponies and cops....the sun shining off his bald head, and he had a toothless, sheepish grin on his face. God surely got him!
Some people call that Karma. I leave that to God to take care of. A lot of people have told lies about me. A lot of people have done things to me that were unfair. I've never taken revenge against them, because I know, ultimately, God will get them. It's a sure thing. I just go along living as gentile and quiet a life as I can manage, knowing the scales will ultimately be balanced. I am content with that.
No comments:
Post a Comment