Don’t Say It!

Jesus was pretty adamant when He said,“ Whoever says ‘You fool!’ (to his brother) shall be in danger of hell fire.” It is clear, it is convicting and it is frightening. Does He really mean hell?
But what about the person we are most likely to call fool? What about the times we call ourselves that? Is Jesus just as concerned?

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We had completed the first year of filming and now had a “product” to sell. We were beginning to see more and more that we were a company and needed some of the necessary things to do business. We set up a room in my home, got a computer, and had Truth in Advertising design some stationery, business cards and note cards for us.

They needed some pertinent information which I gave them - like the return address which is a PO Box, the colors we wanted to use and the quantities. Robin set about getting prices from printers in the area. Once that was done and we had chosen the print company I placed the order…..$1000 worth of stationery, note cards and business cards.

It is sometimes the little things that excite us the most; so when all of the stationery arrived, it was quite a thrill! We were a REAL company, a REAL ministry, a REAL corporation and now we had REAL stationery!

A few days later Eleanor sent out several important pieces of communication on our lovely stationery, but a couple of weeks later she began to hear from all of the companies that had received letters. They had sent answers back to us using the return address provided on the letterhead and envelopes, but all had been returned to them and none had reached us!

We were totally perplexed. I went over and over the steps we had taken trying to solve the problem. Finally I went to our UPS Store which houses our PO Box and went over every line of the address with them. The last line solved the problem. I had put Roswell as the town but our PO Box was in Alpharetta! The city dividing line was the street right in front of the PO Box!

It is hard to describe my feelings of foolishness. I had made such a huge blunder, but the truth is I had NO idea the dividing line was such a short distance from my house!

We are hardest on ourselves. The board was so understanding and kind, but all I saw was $1000 down the drain. In the end, all that we could not salvage went into the trash. And in many ways I followed it emotionally.

The words, “You fool” went through my mind several times a day. How could I have been so stupid! I felt sure that neither Eleanor nor Linda nor any of the other women would have made such a stupid and costly mistake.

How quick we are to call ourselves the very words Jesus said we were not to call any brother. It took a few weeks to get my heart right and my eyes on God, and that was done mostly because of the kindness and quick forgiveness of a team that continually practiced Christ-like love. The blessings of Christian love and forgiveness are greater than we ever deserve yet what we all so desperately need.

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
Matthew 6:14