Every family has a black sheep, I have long been accused of being the one of my mother's family ... only problem is: I am not even close to being the black sheep of the Spencer Clan of the 20th century ...
My mother has an elder brother, someone I only knew as a child, someone I only knew as a victim of his violent rages and drunkenness. Even at my young age, I pitied his children, for he was the most miserable man I have ever encountered in my lifetime. The only thing I can really say positive is that he moved to Alaska leaving the family in his dust for the next 50 years. Out of sight, out of mind ...
But, even in his absence, his damage to the family was so great that he constantly came up in conversation. Always evil - never nice discussions or funny stories. Brutal, unwavering evil. There was nothing else which could be said of him. For my part, I observed and experienced him many times as a child. My grandfather would take me over to see him - however, by the time him and grandfather were smashed - so were my cousins, but from his fists - not alcohol.
I may never forget the image burned in my mind of him beating my cousin Dean because he had gotten the pox and was miserable. Last time I ever saw uncle Raymond was at grandfather's funeral. He showed up drunk, demanding his share of the estate because he was out of beer money and wanted tools to pawn! Well, that one turned ugly fast and the front yard became a battlefield. He got hauled off, certainly not his first, nor last time!
And yet, when I became a Christian, how am I to respond to the existence of this vile man? Of course, forgiveness is called for. But, forgiveness with the knowledge that I should never, ever, see that man ever again! I can forgive what he did to me and those I cared about, but not be dumb enough to ever trust him as family ever.
As the years passed and the internet matured, I thought I would try and find him. Grandmother was aching for her first borne, so I went in search of him. Nothing anywhere under his name, except in the FBI files on his arrests for bank robbery. So, I sat back and thought ... with a little trial and error, I was able to find six aliases he had used through the years. One of them though seemed to be one to have stuck - at the point at which he had become a CHRISTIAN! - through attending Salvation Army Bible studies in Anchorage, Alaska ...
Can a tiger change his stripes?
Can a leopard his spots?
No.
But, God can redirect the path a man is on.
Raymond had become a Christian, and I knew from the various Alaskan police reports and news articles, not much had changed externally in his life - except that he had chosen to invest in some troubled kids lives, for decades!
And so the conflict of my human nature ... Raymond, whom I had hoped to never cross paths ever again with - is now in Heaven, he has come to his rest, he and I will have to resolve some issues it seems when I get my chance to come to my rest.
And yet, my own failures are none the less than Raymond's in God's eyes - and that hurts, that such great evil is the same as me before God ... and I never did anything even close to his scorecard.
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