Love Your Enemies

Love Your Enemies

I recently discovered New York Times best-selling author, Richard Paul Evans, and fell in love with his books. In his insightful book, Sharing Too Much, the author shared a collection of essays about life and love.

Evans wrote that we live in angry times. He observed we see anger play out in road rage on highways and fistfights on airplanes, however, anger is often at its’ worst on social media where anonymous people write horrible things about strangers with whom they disagree. He suggested that even on social media we treat one another kindly.

The author shared that many years ago a woman in Scotland emailed him an angry letter after buying one of his books. She had heard, The Christmas Box, offered encouragement to parents who had lost a child as the author’s mother had. She incorrectly ordered his book, The Christmas Box Miracle. After receiving it she lashed out at Evans for having two books with similar titles. Claiming he stole her money she accused him of being a hypocrite and labeled him a crook. She wrote he was “cruel and greedy to make money off his own mother’s loss of a baby. She informed him she had lost a child, and said he made her sick.”

The woman’s nasty email was full of misspelled words and grammatical errors; it was offensive and rude. Evans drafted a response to her insults suggesting she was one of “the nastiest most pathetic people he had come across in his career.” He wrote she had a low IQ and was small-minded.

Evans reread his email before hitting send and realized his words were not ones for which he wanted to be known. He trashed his initial response and instead sent her an apology, offering to send her the correct book free. He explained that his mother had found comfort in how the book encouraged others who lost a child. Evans then acknowledged he could not “imagine the pain she had experienced…” He closed by wishing her well.

The following morning Evans received a response from the woman saying she was ashamed of her harsh email. She acknowledged ordering the wrong book was her mistake and that she had misjudged his motives. She was amazed Evans had treated her with kindness and respect despite her bad attitude. After admitting she did not deserve his forgiveness, she asked for it anyway. He recalls asking God to grant her peace.

Each of us would do well to remember Jesus’ words, “…love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven…” (Matthew 5:44-45, NLT) Living this way pleases God and makes our world a better place. Living with great kindness and a forgiving heart not only changes others, however, it also makes us a better person.