Flash-forward to 18...I got my license and even scored a cool little Mazda hatchback I named Juliet for free. -Yeah, you read that correctly. ...ok, I may have paid a dollar, as in, ONE dollar....
With driving myself to work and church events, because that about summed-up my 18 year old life, I was asked repeatedly for one, small request: would I pick up cigarettes for Nan?
I wanted to help her, to love her well. Picking up her cancer sticks, as I would affectionately call them, didn't seem like love. It was everything I was against. Heck! I was the girl with this on my bedroom wall all during middle and high school:
Yes, meet my lovely friend...she was likely beautiful, once upon a time.
So I never did pick up her cigarettes, much to her dissatisfaction.
Flash-forward about nine years. I am newly married, and in town, visiting. It is my father's birthday and we are headed to his place. Big Strong Man and I stop at a store to find something -anything- that will suffice as a decent gift. A way of expressing our love of him. We find nothing. As a last resort...literally, WAY, LAST resort... we decide to ask the cashier to throw on a carton of Marlboros to our order and, wa-la, we give him something he wants.
It seemed novel.
The right thing to do. It was about him, not me, after all.
But then...the cashier scanning that red and white box, my eyes meeting the price tag...my heart, forgetting to beat.
The cost would have put us out $40+ dollars! I say "would have" because I darn near had a heart attack or panic attack when I saw the price tag.
People actually pay that???
People can afford to pay that???
As I leaned over, hand to my chest, panting, Big Strong Man -always the rationale one- said something so beautiful, so freeing to me. He said:
Just say no. We don't need to go through with paying for these.
Just Say No.
And I, just like I always have in the past, said no to the nicotine. No to the cancer sticks. And no to the debt. We did not need to prove to my father that we loved him by spending more money than we could afford to buy him something he did not need and all the while having an absolute internal freak-out session.
I can't believe people pay that.... I whispered to the cashier. How can anyone afford that?, I asked, louder this time? We're going to have to put those back on the shelf, I said then, finding my voice.
When we did get to my dad's place, with, I don't remember, a bag of cookies as a gift?, we recounted the story of the cigarette-price-tag-fiasco. He shrugged his shoulders, almost embarrassed, as he said, "yep, they're not cheap". No kidding, Daddy-Obvious.
-----
I have noticed a trend. It isn't smoking, but it is stinky and dangerous.
Compromise.
I was steadfastly against picking up the cigarettes for purchase. My grandmother, wanting pay, asking me just to pick them up for her. But I refused. I took my stand.
Later, not only was I willing to pick them up, but I thought I was ready to purchase them as well.
Turns out, I don't want to take up smoking. I also don't want to make it any easier for another.
Are there areas of compromise in your life? There is no need to berate yourself, do you know that? No need to feel badly or guilty.
In Christ Jesus, there is NO CONDEMNATION.
I write about compromise because it is real. Because I am guilty and I write to provoke thought of you, dear reader. But mostly, I write about Jesus.
Do you know this Jesus?
This Man who loves us enough to save us, redeem us, and call us beautiful?
This God who made a way for us -in love!- to return to Him, even when we consistently deny and defy Him.
Do you know Him?
Do you know The One who turns our mourning into dancing, calls us His, and is preparing a place for us in Heaven?
This One who, though we turned from Him, believed we did not need Him, or that He wasn't even real, calls us back. He comes running to us!! Knocks on our doors. Lives in our hearts.
No other can do that!
Do you know Him?
I do.
Still smoke free and 33!-
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