Cuban Missile Crisis

Necessity being the mother of invention, my Husband and I made up a new game a couple of years ago. We like to call it "Cuban Missile Crisis." It works off the pivotal moment in history when United States spy planes acquired reconnaissance images of Russian nuclear missiles poised northward in Cuba--and called them on it. Russia protested that they had a right to have them; they weren't attacking; and besides--we had likewise, missiles in Turkey.

There was a U.S. blockade in the Atlantic Ocean. And there was the threat of our sinking Russian ships. We let the assumption swell that we might even invade Cuba.

It got ugly, as we all know; school children across the United States got to know the underside of their desks.

There was a flurry of letters exchanged between President Kennedy and Premiere Nikita Khrushchev, but it was the last two that arrived almost simultaneously which are the premise for our game. One letter came full of forceful, chest-thumping threats and rhetoric; another had a conciliatory tone which tapped the parental sensibilities of the two leaders and offered a sense of calm and maybe even--resolution.

President Kennedy was in a quandary; which letter should he believe? How should he respond? What to do?

His brother, the Attorney General and greatest confidant, Robert Kennedy, suggested that they pretend they didn't receive the ugly letter, and instead, work from the other--exclusively.

And so they did.

And we're all still here, aren't we?

And so, on the rare occasion that we receive an unwelcome letter from Someone or no one--for this reason or that--my husband and I gird ourselves up for another game of...

*cue the trumpets*

"Cuban Missile Crisis!"

And in the past, it has accomplished its mission. Many times. It has deflected many a conflict.

The Bible exhorts us to live peaceably with everyone for as much as it is within our control. And we try the best we can, the only way we know how sometimes--silence.

But sometimes...

Sometimes a response becomes necessary.

Sometimes the person who is upset has been unwittingly hurt by words of a single post taken out of the larger context of this blog that says I am a sinner by birth, and a miserable failure in all that I put my hand to, apart from the power of Jesus Christ. And at the top of the list would be parenting. The Lord knows that I guide these precious souls entrusted to me with fear and trembling. And tears. And apologies. And lots of forgiveness--from them and from Him.

And so, the Lord--in the riches of His kindness--has patiently brought me to repentance. I am truly sorry that I judged another's parenting-- because mine is still so wanting.

And restitution--I have removed the post called, Parental Deism.

My fervent prayer is that someday the Lord's grace will allow my Offended to forgive me. Until then, I pray...