The Sheehan Lesson 

The Sheehan Lesson

The Cindy Sheehan situation has made me think about how it is possible to become so bitter and angry over something that it just warps someone’s outlook. She has already lost her son. She is losing her husband through a divorce. Most of her relatives have said that they do not support her. She is in the process of self-destructing and losing what should be the most important things to her at this time and her support network, her family. None of us know what she was like prior to this but undoubtedly this has overcome her. Tragic things, unfair things happen to all of us. Most of them not to this extent but nevertheless we can let them control us, change who we are and take us places we would rather not go if we are not careful. Perhaps it is something that happens on the job, or in the family. Maybe it is being the victim of a crime. I know I have allowed this to happen to me in the past. I have dwelt on some real or perceived wrong and end up doing or saying things that looking back I wish I hadn’t and ended up paying a price for it. Grief is necessary. It is good, but left unchecked it morphs into something else. The Bible has good advice on this. Ephesians 4:26-27 states “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.” Vs. 31 says “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:”

It is good advice. As we let it fester inside of us it continues spread and infect us, eventually destroying us. Sometime down the road Mrs. Sheehan is going to look back and wonder how she got to where she is at. Hopefully it happens before it is too late.