Courts of All Kinds

I made a mistake. A call, an email, a conversation that was mixed up and forgotten in a maelstrom of a too-busy season. Some time had gone by. I didn't look back; I just answered a new phone call and treated it like it was today's news. I missed an important detail from the past. When I became aware of my error, I made apologies, backtracked, asked forgiveness, thought I made it right. It was a small oversight, so I thought.

But tomorrow I sit across a table, in a court of law, with an accuser. An accuser who doesn't believe my mistake was honest. An accuser who somehow thought I was colluding against them to strip them of something -- their money, their rights, their time. It doesn't make sense to me. I was doing my job, fixed my mistake (I thought), and wished to finish what was started. This accuser does not know me. I do not have the luxury of grace or the intimacy of friendship that would smooth her troubled waters. Truth is, I just happened to be in the way when the storm hit.

I've done estate work in real estate for several years now. I feel the deep pain and trials of my clients. There are family feuds that come to roost, bitterness and old offenses that tend to rise to the surface. When the deaths are sudden or unexpected, or if there is any money to be shared, it often becomes dicey. Every possible bad thing rises to the surface, and tomorrow I have to pay witness to that.

My heart breaks for her. She lost her Mama, suddenly and too young, in an accident. Her mother's things still reside in the house in question, molding, bearing mute testimony to a life lost. Our lives, our things, our stuff...they're temporary, but we don't believe it. It's hard to believe there's an eternity, when all we can see is the chasm that yawns before us. We reach, we grasp, but find air. Are all the things true that we've been taught? Do we believe them and can we trust the wisdom of the ages? Our faith, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen...  These are the things that test our mettle, that rock our worlds, that separate the chaff from the wheat. When we are laid bare, what stands between us, between the furnaces of hell and the bliss of heaven? Is it my goodness or my good intentions? If my little mistakes require court, then what about the big, unfixable, irretrievable ones? The ones that drag their hooks into the earth, into my people.

There was one who came, perfect, God and man at once. My sin and my sins, big, small, indifferent, were laid on him at the cross. It is a simple truth, so simple that we often don't believe it. We are too complex, too sophisticated, too proud. I believe, in the end, what sends one to hell isn't lying, stealing, cheating, murder....but it is that bowed-up back of pride that says, "I will not surrender to Thee. I will be God." The way is narrow, and few there be that find it.