God has given me four sons and four daughters who are very careful not to hurt my feelings. I’m glad because as much as I love them, they could hurt me deeply if they tried. I try to be a big boy but I still have some growing up to do.
We have at least one child, though, who is especially merciful. She is Holly our eighteen-year-old. We think she has the gift of mercy described in the twelfth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans. You don’t really know what you are missing if you don’t have a mercy-shower in your house.
Our mercy-shower’s gift showed up early. She was about three and her mom was sad. In fact, she was crying. I’m not going into what made her cry because it would make me look bad.
She was sitting on the floor because all of our furniture was in the moving van and we were about to leave on a long journey to a far away place to start a new phase of our lives. Our little mercy-shower, face wrinkled with concern, eyes dark and searching walked over and put her hand on her mother’s shoulder. She leaned over and peered strait into her eyes and said, “Mommy, you have feelings on your face.”
When you have feelings on your face and an ace in your heart, it is good to have someone gifted with mercy around to hurt with you. I hope you have someone like Holly in your life.
