PATCHES

Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam, so drop the matter before dispute breaks out. – Proverbs 17:14

You can make up a quarrel, but it will always show where it was patched.     – Edgar Watson Howe, Country Town Sayings

     We are a people who like to quarrel and pick fights. We think very little about what we say and how we say it. Our shoulders are chafed due to the chip we carry around. I am just as bad as the rest. I posted a “Don’t tread on me” flag on our office door at the hospital. This feisty attitude displayed by all of us is a reflection of the lack of worth we assign to our fellow human beings. And, it very well may reflect a lack of self-worth. I often draw blood from patients in the course of my duties. At times, as I place the bandage over the “hole”, I kid them and tell them not to drink any water for about an hour or they will leak. Some take me seriously! But, each of us put holes in those with whom we quarrel tattering the cloth of relationship. Out of those holes leak self-worth, self-respect, self-confidence and the remnants of a heart’s love. Despite patching, in time the holes will be the sources of argument and ill-will. Neveragain will the relationship be whole or will be able to withstand even the smallest slight as the garment that holds the relationship together is now weakened, tattered and torn. Sometimes, even our best patch will burst, like a dam, spilling for the venom of hatred and malice. Patches, like bandages, mask a sore underneath that no salve of human making can often heal. It may very well take the ministrations of the Great Physician to heal the hurts, patch the holes, we deal to one another. It may be best, day in and day out, to try to live peacefully with all, even if we have to self-apply a few bandages – - – - across our mouth!

     OMG, today I need to be a peacemaker applying the salve of love and the bandage of understanding to those I have hurt with my words. Amen.

 

copyright 2010 by Richard Hugh Manlove

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