A mega toxic rock!

This week we’ve been talking about ‘rocks’ of dishonor, toxic rocks, and we’ve even taken a toxic test. If you tested ‘positive’ for toxicity, then I need to give you a real incentive to let go of the bitterness and find it in your heart to extend forgiveness to whomever the source of your pain, hurt, anger, bitterness… (I’m sure you get the idea) is aimed at. How do you let go of bitterness? Well, like I mentioned previously, you must take the attention off yourself and place it squarely on Jesus. You must remind yourself that there are other people suffering much worse indignities than you will ever come close to suffering, and Jesus needs you to be Him to them during this season of immeasurable pain and difficulty.

Consider the following story from MSNBC.com.
DOSHU, Congo - Zamuda Sikujuwa shuffles to a bench in the sunshine, pushes apart her thighs with a grimace of pain and pumps her fist up and down in a lewd-looking gesture to show how the militiamen shoved an automatic rifle inside her.

The brutish act tore apart her insides after seven of the men had taken turns raping her. She lost consciousness and wishes now that her life also had ended on that day.

The rebels from the Tutsi tribe had come demanding U.S. dollars. But when her husband could not even produce local currency, they put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. When her two children started crying, the rebels killed them too. Then they attacked Sikujuwa and left her for dead.

The 53-year-old still has difficulty walking after two operations. Yet she wants to tell the world her story, even though repeating it brings back the nightmares.

“It’s hard, hard, hard,” she says. “I’m alone in this world. My body is partly mended but I don’t know if my heart will ever heal. …I want this violence to stop. I don’t want other women to have to suffer what I am suffering.”

Wow! I guess it puts a whole new perspective on 'toxic rocks.' Zamuda’s got the right idea though. The only way to cope with the pain and release the bitterness is to take the focus and attention off the wrong done to you, and focus on how you can use it as a blessing for someone else. It takes a real understanding of God’s greater purpose to find the place of forgiveness, and I love the way Matthew West says it in his song, The Motions.
I don’t wanna go through the motions
I don’t wanna go one more day
Without your all consuming passion inside of me
I don’t wanna spend my whole life asking,
“What if I had given everything, instead of going through the motions?”