Blessed Are You Book Club: Persecution
When Sarah Damm approached me in May about contributing to WINE’s summer book club, she offered me a choice between the peacemaking chapter (which we just read) and the one on persecution. My response is telling:
That’s a hard decision. I just read something very beautiful on peacemaking, something that resonated with me—and that kind of topic is my usual go-to. However, persecution is something I’m deathly (no exaggeration) afraid of; I hate conflict. Either one works, but if you’re looking for a punchier, poignant post, I’ll go with persecution.
By “punchier” I meant, “An honest confession of how even the bickering of my family and friends on Facebook over hot-button topics sends me running to a corner to suck my thumb.” That conflict makes me sick to my stomach. That I really, really, really like it when people like me.
Punchy or not, I hoped she would say, Oh, that’s okay! You can do the peacemaking chapter! Because who doesn’t love peacemaking?
Instead Sarah—cruel, heartless woman!—replied with:
Perhaps that is the Holy Spirit nudging you 🙂 Whenever I get a bit nervous about something that I know is the “right” thing for me to do, I know it is the Lord. Otherwise, I’d be running in the opposite direction!
Persecution it is. Dang it.