What's In YOUR Sack?

In the year 2000, an American financial institution began a successful advertisement campaign that asked the viewer, "What's in YOUR wallet?" Sorry, bank, but Mexicans had that covered way before you came along!

My great grandmother, Benigna (her name is translated Kindness, an apt description of that venerable lady) Escamilla, was fond of repeating the well-known Mexican axiom: "Solo el que lleva el costal sabe lo que trae adentro." In English that would be, Only the one who carries the sack knows what is in it.

I always liked the sound of the saying, it seems to roll off the tongue in a beguiling way, but now, with decades of experience behind me, I understand and embrace it in a far different way--and hope you will, too. I am so in need of grace from God--and you.

I have been blessed with two wonderful mother-in-laws, one from my deceased husband's family, and one from my new husband. Many of my children's growing up years were spent with yearly visits (some as long as three weeks!) to my first mother-in-law's home as we itinerated and were blessed to have Mom Muse (aka Grandma Muse, Sister Muse, or Gigi) and her husband return the favor and visit our family in Mexico or deep south Texas once or twice a year. In other words, we rubbed elbows quite a bit.

If I had to describe Mom Muse to you, I would say that she was the epitome of a clean housekeeper (I DARE a mite of dust to land in her house! She was never critical of me, never saying a negative word when she came to visit, but that didn't keep me from trembling and praying that my own housekeeping would pass muster!), and polite to the nth degree! I kid you not. After son Stephen was born, she would look at him, then at me and ask, "Is it okay with you if I pick him up?" This kind of blew me away. Not to denigrate my own grandma, but Grandma Maria would simply just grab Stephen out of my arms, especially if she thought I wasn't carrying him the way she thought fit. Asking permission was just … so polite!

So much so, that one day I in fact mentioned it to her. After all, mother-in-laws are generally perceived as real-life Cruellas--and mine was anything but! In that quiet way of hers, she looked at me, her mouth lifting in a wry smile. "Janine, honey. Maybe it's because I had a good example of what not to do …"

I was benefitting from what Grandma Muse had suffered through--her own mother-in-law had acted in what is considered more typical fashion. There was not a daughter-in-law Grandma Jessie didn't tell to her face, "You're not what I would have picked for my son" (on more than one occasion!). If the family went to visit her (she lived a few hours away), she would complain that they didn't come often enough, that they didn't love her, etc. etc. When my mother-in-law's second son was born fifteen months after the first, Grandma Jessie actually pushed the child away and refused to have anything to do with him. He was "robbing" the first child of the chance to be the sole baby for a "decent" amount of time. That second child suffered from anger issues that finally got resolved at the foot of the cross, but to her dying day Grandma Muse attributed the cause of them to be his grandmother's blatant rejection of him. That is how Grandma Muse learned what NOT to do!

Lest this come across as pure Grandma Jessie bashing--although she had passed away by the time I came into the family, everyone across the board bore witness to the fact that she was an anointed teacher of God's Word. As prickly as she came across in day to day family interactions, when she got a Bible in her hands, she morphed into someone else. God's anointing transformed her words into those of edification, strength, and healing. Truly the callings and gifts of God are without repentance! (Romans 11:29). Hard for us as mere mortals to understand, but there you have it, why some anointed ministers can do such un-Christian things yet retain that ability to minister in a moving way. And Grandma Jessie had another wonderful talent--one day she walked up to a piano and just began tickling those ivory keys like she was born to them! No lessons, just an anointed touch of God. Anything she heard she could play!

One day, though, Grandma Muse gave me some insight into Grandma Jessie's orneriness. When she was diagnosed with cancer and was in and out of the hospital, guess who took care of her? Right. None other than Grandma Muse, one of her daughter-in-laws, one who had been a recipient of Grandma Jessie's unkindness. But Grandma Muse said, in wonder, that, in her delirium, Grandma Jessie talked about things that had happened to her as a child. Grandma Muse said, "Janine, I wished I had known those things in those early years. It made me understand why Grandma Jessie was the way she was!"

I don't know the nature of Grandma Jessie's sufferings that formed her into a prickly tongued mother-in-law. I have a friend who was abused by her father's best friend at an early age, another who was abused by her very own biological grandfather. Both are beautiful sisters in Christ, but the scars they bear from those atrocities are invisible to the naked eye. When you look at them, you can't see what they went through. You cannot see what is in the sack they carry. I myself was the recipient of passive abuse as a child and still struggle with the ensuing results--I am too, too timid. The flight response that rises up in me has in turn caused me to hurt others--by the time my warped self realizes I should have spoken up it is too late and, sadly, damage has been done. But when you look at me, you cannot see the sack I carry.

We need to remember that Mexican saying. We need to remember that everyone we meet is carrying a sack--and only they know what it is they carry.

Lord, open my eyes to look at others with Your mercy. I cannot see the life-scars that mar their actions, I do not understand where they are coming from. But You know. You see. Please, Lord. Give me Your love and mercy towards those with whom I rub elbows. Especially the ones who rub me the wrong way.

"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." Ephesians 3:14-19