It has a Limit

My sister has been found guilty of felony fleeing and eluding. The court’s website does not say anything about the disposition of the aggravated battery charge. It says there will be a pre-sentencing investigation. That doesn’t mean she avoided the three-year minimum. It may just mean they want to decide whether she gets MORE than three years. Unless they changed the charges, or I was wrong about the statute involved, she will get at least three years, and she will serve every single day of the minimum, no matter how well she behaves.

This is really something. That’s the end of her law license. At least for the foreseeable future. She won’t be allowed to possess arms. She won’t be allowed to vote. Getting a job will be nearly impossible.

Over the last couple of days, I have had some unsettling thoughts.

God is restoring me. A few nights back, I kept hearing sentences in my head, and I got up and wrote them down. One was, “The one who loves me is healing me.” I have seen this happening. And part of it is undoing the damage other people have done to me.

I forgive my sister. I renew my forgiveness in prayer often. I don’t want to live in the past or be burdened by it. But the truth is that she has persecuted me ever since I was born.

Even when she was in her forties, it bothered her for me to sit in the front seat of a car. That’s how bad it was. She’s short, but she absolutely had to be in the front seat. She got very angry when I sat in front. That’s probably the best illustration of the way she felt about me. It was not normal sibling rivalry.

When we were in social settings with other people, she sought to exclude me. For example, she once started a card game for four hands, while there were five of us in the room, and I was the one left out. She would ridicule me and try to get other people to use insulting epithets she had made up for me.

Why bring this up? Because God can’t heal and restore me while allowing a persecutor to continue. If you get close to God, and you develop a good prayer life and put God’s goals first, he is going to restore you and bless you. He will humble your enemies and take back what they took from you.

If that is the case, and it certainly is, what will happen to your friends, relatives, and acquaintances, if they abuse you and refuse to change?

If you know someone who is developing a strong connection with God, and you’re not treating them right, you need to wake up before you land in trouble. God is not going to wait for your repentance until his child is on his deathbed. He is patient with the rebellious, but not to the point where he refuses to save his children from them in a timely way.

I know this will sound bad to the people who believe in what Ward Brewer calls “Squishy Jesus.” We have been taught that we will suffer and lose until we die, and that we should never, ever acknowledge anyone else’s bad acts or inclinations, but that’s a lot of garbage. The Holy Spirit killed Ananias and Sapphira in the New Testament. God killed Herod in the New Testament. Look what happened to Judas. Paul turned a man over to Satan so his flesh could be destroyed. Judgment is still with us, and the rebellious still receive it.

I hate to say this, but the other day I realized that if my sister is confined for a season, I’ll have rest. I feel like someone is lifting filthy rags off of my face. My life will actually be improved. I would have preferred to see her change, but I have to have relief, one way or the other.

If they put her away, she will be cared for, and she will be exposed to prison ministries. That will be a thousand times better than living in squalor and idleness.

I may take this down later. I don’t know. What happened to her is a matter of public record. I don’t know if it serves any purpose to keep quiet, especially if people can learn from this. I will consult God and do what he says.

I glorify him for making her unable to inflict misery on me. He has saved me from a tremendous amount of suffering already, over the last three or four years. Had she been at full strength, this would have been a time of oppression and turmoil.

I also thank him for not giving up on her.