Gerbil Justice
Vengeance is mine; I
will repay.
— Hebrews 10:30
Has someone ever done something to you that was so mean, you
wanted to grab her upper lip, pull it forward and use it as a trampoline?
Have you ever wanted to let 1,000 cockroaches loose in her
kitchen minutes before her big party?
Or sneak into her house when she's sleeping, put super glue
on her finger and carefully, gingerly, place her finger in her nostril?
Noooooo, you say. I'm a nice person. Nice people never get
angry and want revenge.
Right.
Liar.
There's a fine line between seeking justice and seeking
vengeance. Lots of times in my checkered past, I didn't. When I got bonked, I
bonked back.
But one time, with the help of a gerbil named Fudge, I
managed to take the high road, didn't seek revenge, and let justice win out in
a wonderful way.
Here's what happened:
A meanmouth was doing me dirt behind my back. She felt
really competitive with me and had done mean stuff in the past, like send me an
invitation to a big party at her house with the time the party ended
"accidentally" written in as the time the party started. So I arrived, and
looked and felt like a dummie.
Now she was slandering me, bigtime. But by the time I found
out, it was too late to put things right. I was stuck. I came out a loser on
something I otherwise probably would have won.
Stung, I wanted to pay her back, bigtime. I wanted my pound
of flesh. Make that a ton!
But darn. I couldn't. That turn-the-other-cheek thing. To
seek revenge would lower me to her lowdown level. I was known around town for
what faith I professed. I couldn't turn to The Dark Side. I had to forgive and
forget. I had to grin and bear it.
But then, to make matters worse, she sent me flowers.
She didn't do it because she was sorry for what she had
done. She sent the flowers to rub it in that she had won, and I had lost. To
kick me when I was down. To gloat. Her self-serving, condescending sympathy
note made that clear.
Oooh! The nerve! But again, I couldn't retaliate. If I
called her up and told her I knew HOW she had beat me, exactly what I really
thought of her, and what she could do with her flowers, it wouldn't change a
thing, and I would just look like a sore loser.
So I pouted. The flowers sat on the counter all day, making
me think about how she had bested me and fixating on the whole sad, strange
mess.
On top of everything else, our gerbil, Fudge, had died, one
day shy of his (or her) third birthday. We planned to bury him (or her) in a
little white box in the back yard. It was freezing out, and there was snow on
the ground. But we thought we could at least dig a hole and say a few words
over him (or her). The memorial service was to be that afternoon.
The kids came home from school. They knew I was depressed.
They had an idea why. They saw the flowers, and who they were from.
Suddenly, the oldest one got a sparkle in her eye. She
suggested demurely that we place the flowers outside on Fudge's wintry grave.
My heart leaped. Flowers . . . from a rat . . . for a rat!
It was the happiest funeral I ever attended.
Eventually, I was able to forgive the woman, trust God to
deal with her in His own way, and put it all behind me, and yes, He certainly
has, praise His ever-lovin', perfectly-fair Name.
But gee, it was fun to watch her gosh-darned, unwanted
flowers turn black and crusty out on that cold little hump in the snowy back
yard that day.
Thanks to Fudge, may he (or she) rest in peace, I learned
something important:
Revenge may be sweet . . . but God's justice is even
sweeter. †
