Blood

"Deep down, coursing through my soul, are the same currents of jealousy and resentment and bitterness and rebellion that surfaced in the life of Cain. The currents flow all throughout our human family, deadly and deep - currents as old as Eden and as thick as blood. And sometimes they bubble to the surface when we least expect it."

I don't know how many times I've told myself "I can't even kill a bug...how could I ever take a life?" And, for the most part, that IS true - I do have trouble killing even a bug (unless he's a spider and then I seem to find my way past the whole "life is precious" thinking and just step on the little bugger.)

But the fact of the matter is this: I'm no better than Cain. The same evil that ran through him runs through me. I will never take my brother out back and stone him to death but I've had thoughts of how my life would be better if "certain people had never been born" and I kill people in my heart with my words all the time. One moment I'm this God-loving Christian woman and the next minute I'm jealous, bitter, resistant, and pugnacious. I can carry a thought of wrong doing in my head for quite a long time, thank you very much, and realizing that thoughts are just as dangerous to my salvation as the actual acts themselves has been a repeated theme in my journey to becoming what God intended me to be.

Cain is most definitely my brother as well.

Yet, I choose to show compassion to those I feel have wronged me or who bring out the worst traits of hatred and envy in myself. I'm constantly working on learning to turn the other cheek and let it go - something I never did before I got saved. I used to want revenge or karma or something to come and take these people down a notch or two but now I see the evil of my thoughts and try to stop them in their tracks, remembering that they are God's creation also and are no better (or no worse) than I in His eyes.

One last thing I'd like to add here, and I don't often go into political stands or voice my private opinions publicly but I have done a LOT of thinking about the death penalty for people and have come to one conclusion. If you are on a deserted island and someone like Cain lives among you and you have no other recourse but to kill or be killed, then you do what you gotta do. But in a society where we spend more on jails and prisons and justice than we do on building schools I have to say that killing someone who could be housed away from the general public for the rest of their life is the only way to go. Killing that begets more killing just seems senseless to me. Personally, I say stick them in a cell and make them watch video tapes of their victims every day for the rest of their lives is a much better punishment than killing them. Even if they never come to Christ and never understand the depth of pain they've caused others, it is in our showing of mercy that pulls the world UP a notch instead of further down. That's just my humble opinion but its how I've always felt and it only grows stronger as I become more and more in the image of what God intended me to be.

With that, let me just say one last thing...As I read through this chapter the first time, I found myself getting wrapped up in the story of Cain and Abel and when I got to the page with the bloodstain on it, I almost wept - it pulled me in that much that I felt I really was experiencing what Cain felt towards Abel. It is a decidedly scary place to visit and hope never to return there.