TITLE: My Fair Share By Mary Elder-Criss 11/23/04 |
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My Fair Share
By: Mary Elder-Criss
Blood curdling in its intensity, the wail that resounded from the kitchen was enough to make my marrow freeze. I rushed into the room, heart in my throat, sure that I was going to find my oldest daughter in a death match with either the blender or carving knife. Seeing her standing whole with no missing limbs, or electrically induced hair style, I stopped short, my panicky “What’s wrong, what’s happened?” dying on my lips. She not only appeared uninjured, she didn’t appear to be in any pain at all, unless you counted the severely clinched jaw.
“What in the world is the problem, Emily?” I asked, as my heart slowly sank back into its appropriate cavity. “I thought you were dying in here!”
Slowly turning to face me, hands on hips in a gesture of disgust, teeth bared, and eyes feral, she informed me, “Someone ate my last bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.”
“That’s it? That’s what all the caterwauling was about?” I exclaimed in astonishment. “You caused the loss of another year from my life, and the gain of ten gray hairs over a missing bowl of cereal?”
“It was my LAST bowl, Mom,” she muttered in disgust, accompanied by the proverbial eye rolling that every teenager recognizes as a symptom of intense suffering over their parent’s complete and utter idiocy.
“Well, good grief, Emily, it’s not as if I can’t buy you some more cereal. Heavens, you scared me half to death, with your banshee wails.”
“What’s the point in buying more of it? Someone else will just eat it before I can. Everyone knows that’s my favorite kind, but I never get my fair share.”
At the time, I was simply grateful that she wasn’t in the throes of death, and dismissed her words and attitude as being overly dramatic, as only teenage girls can be. It was only later that phrase came back to haunt me, and made me think.
How often, can we as adults be found complaining about not receiving what we deem as our “fair share?”
When we are passed over at work for a job that we felt we are entitled to, do we not rant and rave, and protest the fairness of the decision? When another person gets credit for labor that we have done, does our flesh not scream, “Hey! Wait a minute! I deserve the recognition for that!”
When someone regrets to acknowledge a contribution we have made, or doesn’t give us the respect we feel we are entitled to, does our flesh not burn? When we do not receive a pat on the back and a hearty “Nice job!” do we not take offense?
Focusing on what is “justly ours,” removes the focus from what is “justly His.” The state of offense is not a place I want to take up residence in.
“Just wanting what is coming to me. Simply desiring what is due me, what I should justly have, “my fair share.”
Next time your flesh starts talking, demanding what rightfully belongs to it, stop for a moment and just consider. Then, thank God for His mercies. Praise His Name, for Christ took what I had coming to me, what was due you; what was rightfully ours. Thanks be to Jesus for taking “my fair share.”
Copyright 2004
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