faithMile

A while ago, a friend asked me to write a letter of recommendation so that she could qualify for a scholarship. When she asked me, I said yes, but when I looked at the paperwork, I wasn’t so sure about my decision. “I know her,” I thought, “but not well enough to answer these questions!” I was disappointed. I wanted to help her, but I suddenly realized how little I knew about her. Because the deadline was rapidly approaching, I didn’t think she could find a replacement if I backed out, so I got out a blank sheet of paper and began to “practice” writing the letter.

There were questions to guide me (like, How has the candidate overcome adversity?) and, as I answered them, I realized that I actually knew a lot about my friend.

As I thought about her roles at home and at church, I realized that she is a dynamic leader who has overcome a lot of difficulties to get where she is today. I saw her strength and her ability to laugh in a new way. By the time I finished, not only did my friend get a great letter of recommendation, but I had a new level of respect for her. Writing that letter did great things for our friendship – and she doesn’t even know.

If my level of admiration and respect for my friend increased through the act of writing her a letter of recommendation, what would happen if I wrote a letter of recommendation for my enemy?

God says that we should love our enemies and forgive those who tresspass against us. That’s not an option. It’s a direct command. Usually, people become our enemies because they’ve done something negative to us or someone we care about. How can we love someone who has done something so bad? By seeing them as God sees them: as human and whole.

Think about it. Our enemies are people, just like us. There are things that we know about them. We know some of their hardships. We know their backgrounds. We even know their insecurities. If we didn’t, then they wouldn’t have a chance of being an enemy. We wouldn’t know them well enough to dislike them.

If loving your enemies is a challenge for you, here are some simple tasks that can help you put them into perspective:

* Write down several of your enemy’s personality traits. Then, write down how those traits could help him achieve success – as if you were writing a letter of recommendation. For instance, someone who you think of as a “dictator” or “control freak” is probably organized, efficient and has a commanding presence. Great traits for a leader!

* Ask yourself if your enemy has overcome adversity to attain her present position. Think about the hardships she’s had to face – or is still facing. How would you react if you were in her position? If you were facing the same challenges, would you do any better, or would you react the same way she did?

* Sometimes it’s easier to think of someone’s good traits if we can see how they can help us. If you were forced to rely on your enemy for something, what would you want it to be? Is he punctual? Does she know how to “work a room” or talk her way out of unpleasant situations?

* What traits do you admire in your enemy that you wish you had more of? Could you use her fashion sense? His time management skills? Her financial saavy? His computer expertise?

Everyone has value – including your enemies. By writing your enemy a “letter of recommendation,” you can discover the entire person rather than focusing on one or two negative experiences. In the end, you will have more respect for your enemy … and maybe even develop a friend!

by Staci Stallings

In the abyss between life and death resides only faith.
Experts call this abyss “Motherhood.”

Lying on a cold, hard bed only six months along with my first child, I faced the frightening implications of this truth. My body shook uncontrollably as abject terror clutched at me. My only lifeline was my husband’s hand clutching mine over the abyss as love for life—mine and the tiny, still-unseen child’s—burned deep in our hearts. One after another after another the nurses piled the bloody sheets into the corner until the doctor pronounced those fateful words, “The baby’s coming.”

Only then, with control slipping past me into a haze of drugs and fear, did I make that one, final leap—the leap from control to faith—the leap from childlessness into motherhood.

My next recollection was my husband’s hand once again holding mine as he said the words that officially changed my life, “We have a little girl.”

The images of the next two months blurred together as ups and downs alternated at break-neck speed. One minute spent holding my two-pound and yet weightless daughter in my arms versus the next three weeks spent holding only tiny fingers through the isolet window—waiting for the next opportunity to take my baby out of the incubator again.

The drugs, powerful enough to keep her safe from infection, again and again blew through her small veins while all I could do was watch, pray, and hang onto the faith that somehow we would get through this. If we could just make it to the next horizon, through the next transfusion and the next round of drugs, then I could live again. Until then survival was my only goal.

In the darkness of a soul in crisis, my prayers became much deeper. No longer were they for selfish requests. Now they were centered wholly on the tiny baby God had entrusted to my care. The Lord has said, “Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you” (Psalms 55:22), and during those long days, that was what kept me going.

As good as that sounds, however, reality was that my only real positives at the time were formed by the negatives. “It’s not pneumonia.” “It’s not an infection.” “We won’t have to put the IV in her head—this time.” The struggle to live was being waged not only by the tiny baby lying helplessly in the incubator, but by her mother’s spirit as well. Fear laced every call to the hospital, every question, every conversation. But always the faith remained. Somehow we would make it. Somehow God sustained me. Somehow.

Then in one faltered heartbeat the negatives became negatives again, and I faced a test of faith more terrifying than my own journey through the abyss—my baby’s journey to the edge of the River Jordan. All her veins had been blown, and a new IV would have to go in her head—all the other options had been exhausted.

In utter desperation my husband and I left the hospital, and on a rain-soaked highway with the amber glow of the streetlights flashing above me, I reached a place that I never even knew existed—the place where faith no longer resides.

“Why?” I asked the darkness around me. “Why?”

But God has promised, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5), and I am here to tell you, He does send messengers to help when you ask. Truth is, mine was sitting right by my side—exactly where he had been through the whole ordeal. Slowly my husband reached over, took my hand, and spoke the words that I would cling to not only for this one night but for the rest of eternity. “She’s going to be okay. You’ve just got to have faith.”

Every day for the next five years that faith has been tested over and over again. Every time I let my baby—big girl, now—off at play school. Every time my second daughter lets go of my hand and walks off on her own. Every time one child or the other screams in pain or in fear at two o’clock in the morning—the words come back to me, “She’s going to be okay. You’ve just got to have faith.”

In the days to come, the phrase will only become more powerful. During the long nights when the girls fail to call and on the days when they experience their own griefs, the words will be there to help me through. Time and again as I hold my children for one brief moment and then release them into the abyss, the words will be there.

Through school, best friends, boyfriends, first dates, first heartbreaks, in partnership with God and my husband, I will remain the rock on which these two girls can build their lives. Until someday in some beautiful sunlit church, I will watch from a front pew as they stand before God and pledge themselves to another forever. Then as they turn, kiss me, and walk away into their own lives, the words will again be there. “She’s going to be okay. You’ve just got to have faith.”

The day will come of course when the abyss will stretch before me again “when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:4).

In some darkened room on another cold, hard bed I will step toward the abyss to make my final journey home. However, this time I will have not one but three sets of hands to hold onto. Then, looking up into the eyes of the two beautiful women my daughters have become, the sadness at our imminent parting will be there, but a greater understanding will hold me also.

Beyond a doubt, I know that as I slip from the darkness of this world into the light beyond, I will hear that voice one more time: “They’re going to be okay. You’ve just got to have faith.”

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Are you tired of all the trash labeled “entertainment” these days? If so, you are invited to visit the author of this article, Staci Stallings, at http://www.stacistallings.com or check out her books at Amazon An Inspirational Romance Author, Staci welcomes all visitors to read sample chapters of her work, powerful and uplifting articles, her free monthly newsletter “On Our Journey Home” which is featured on the site, and Faith Stories from around the globe. You will feel better for the experience!