Saturday, August 30, 2014

CLOSURE

When one Christian wrongs another, God's will is that the second Christian forgive and the first Christian make amends. I have seen this happen. But many times, the second Christian forgives and the first Christian does nothing.

"Closure" in this instance is not God's perfect will. It occurs when the second Christian forgives, the first Christian makes a solid refusal to set things right, God takes vengeance, and the second Christian learns of it.

About 34 years ago, I worked for a Christian school that badly mistreated its teachers. The pastor's son was above the rules, and I received a loud chewing out for making him obey them.

We had an insurance meeting, and everyone on staff voted to include pregnancy insurance. The pastor's enraged wife, her face livid with anger, lashed out at the young couples who were teaching in their Christian school. The insurance agent pointed out that older women had the same average costs as younger women with pregnancy insurance, but she made her husband give in. A valuable lesson I learned that day was how much the leadership in Christian schools despised their teachers.

When teachers made a student behave, the principal would send the student to take the teacher out of class for a chewing out in front of the student.

About a week after the school year ended, they informed me that I was not coming back next year. It was difficult to find a position with such short notice, but God took care of me and I went into a much better school.

One reason was that I had forced the pastor's son to behave in class. The pastor had literally yelled at me for doing it, and I had told him that his son was lying. A few days ago, the son, now 47, was sentenced to 16 to 20 months prison for molesting boys while he was his father's youth director.

"Closure" does me little good. I had forgiven them back when it happened. God had taken care of me, and I had become a better teacher as a result of all that happened. Reconciliation would have been better for everyone.

Especially the Christian who did wrong.

 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord. Romans 12:19