Supermarket Girl – Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

Inside of her, Ruth had a raging battle taking place. She thanked God for the fact that she was a deep sleeper because without her sleep, she would be unable to function.

Although the still small voice that talked to her in her quiet time was very convincing and she followed almost everything it told her, there was another voice that tried relentlessly, to steer her away from the straight and narrow, without any semblance of giving up, no matter how hard she resisted it.

Fortunately, she was very familiar with and therefore very cautious of the tempting, luring voice that tried to keep her from getting to Heaven.

When the still small voice told her to stop making decisions because of others and instead make decisions because of herself, at first she could not understand the meaning of that because it sounded very selfish and wrong.

“If I make decisions based only on what I want, thinking of others second, will I not be self centred?” she asked herself.

After a short debate with herself, she realized where she was going wrong.

She was not to make decisions because of herself in terms of what she wants; she was to make decisions based on what she thought not what others thought. It is the thinking that matters.

Many a time, Ruth had heard people from the past generation lamenting about how they did this or that for their children and now she understood where this kind of talk came from. She dreaded being the kind of parent to lament to her children about how her sacrifices were not of her own choosing.

She wanted to be sure that she would never blame anyone for the good she did for them.

In fact that was the beginning of her conversation with her still small voice. She had gone into her quiet time to ask about what she needed to do to ensure that she did not resent her ex-husband for all the good she had invested into a marriage that took her nowhere.

She wanted to be able to tell herself something that could give her confidence that nothing had been wasted.

The answer she got is that all the good she did, she did because she believed it was good at that time. She did not do it because of her husband or her in-laws or whoever else. She did it because of herself; because of what she herself thought at that time, when she did not know better.

Even now, in the present, as she continued to do good, she should know that the good she does needed to be well thought out and considered because she must not do anything that she would live to regret or at least she should restrict her regrets to almost zero.

She now knew better and that meant more responsibility.

She realized that she used to do things she thought were good without much thought about what she was doing and for whom. After memorising Proverbs 14:12, she realized that doing good requires as much (if not more) thought as doing evil.

Proverbs 14:12 – There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

She understood that you can visit one person in hospital and do good and visit another and do evil.

It is not just the getting to the hospital that matters. It is how you get there, who you’re going to visit, your timing, the gifts you bring, the conversation(s) you have, how long you stay, who you meet there, what value you add and so much more.

When the entire act of supposed goodness is added together, you must be able to say that all of it was good. When this thought process settled in her mind, she felt very enlightened.

It was such a relief to realize that you must never take for granted that any act is good in and of itself. Good should never be taken lightly.