Boova does the dishes: loving enemies as action
- How do you love your enemies in concrete action rather than mere feeling?
Boova tells an extended story: a friend had been a jerk to him for days, yet the man stayed on his mind, so Boova went over, cooked eggs, and ended up hand-washing an hour and a half of piled-up dishes without making a show of it, telling the couple it was not about shame. He connects it to his own history with depression, when even one dish felt debilitatingly overwhelming. His thesis: in Scripture love is rarely a feeling word, it is an action verb, and loving enemies costs something and carries real risk of being misunderstood. Ben adds that Jesus was willing to be associated with people like Ben and Buva despite how it looked.
More on Forgiveness
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Dear LFTP: the $4,200 loan that never came back
- How do I get past the sadness over the $4,200 loan my friend never repaid — do I just let it go?
The final Dear LFTP letter: a year ago a supposed friend asked to borrow money — her husband had left the country to renew his visa, her car was repossessed, she had no way to get to work.
From No. 603 · Found Out
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Dear LFTP: the stolen college fund and telling the 90-year-olds
- Should I tell my 90-year-old parents that their grandson stole my granddaughter's college fund?
Ben hands to Mike, who reads a grandmother's letter: her son helped himself to the college money the great-grandparents set aside for her granddaughter; she fears telling her parents, in their nineties, could shock them into a stroke.
From No. 586 · Nothing Personal
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Dear LFTP: forty years of a cheating wife and a temptation
- Would it be wrong to rekindle an old friendship for intimacy when my wife has cheated for forty years?
A man approaching his fortieth anniversary writes that his wife has always been a serial cheater, a secret he kept to protect the children's view of her; with retirement and a sexless marriage he asks whether rekindling things with old female friends would be wrong.
From No. 581 · Silly Rabbit | Christianity, Culture, and Navigating Social Expectations
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Dear LFTP: the stalker ex-girlfriend
- How do I get my stalker ex-girlfriend to leave me alone?
Mike reads a letter from a man whose ex-girlfriend keeps trying to get him back, even stalking him, after he blocked her number.