Last week I wrote to those of you who live in the awareness of your dark side. Today I write to those of you who relish the weight of stones in your hands.

I know you. I used to be you. Still am sometimes.

You can’t understand how someone would make such foolish decisions. You can’t comprehend how people could possibly make different decisions than you’d make. You wonder how people can lack self-control and fall into addiction or an affair or theft or {pick a sin}. You wonder why anyone would ever make the decision to risk everything for such stupidity.

You lack compassion for others…especially those who cause their own pain. Truth be told, you lack compassion for yourself. You have an iron will when it comes to self-control.

But here’s the deal: hurt people hurt others. Maybe that’s why you have a pile of stones at your feet and one always ready in your hand. Unlike the one with the dark side, your hurt is not internal or self-inflicted. Your hurt is from an external source, so that’s where you focus the hurt.

Those little stones you find easy to pick up and throw often?…yeah, those are the ones that probably hurt the most. The little digs. Just a word here and there. A reminder of guilt. Those little stones do some major damage…to both parties. It keeps the hurt alive and fresh.

I used to throw stones, and still have a few left around my feet that I’m sometimes tempted to bend down and pick up. But I’ve realized something about stones. They’re not clean when we pick them up. We can polish and shine our stones for long periods of time until we’re proud of how clean they look, but in the beginning, our hands get just as dirty as the ones at whom we’re throwing them.

There’s this too: once we throw our stones, they eventually land on the ground, making them fair game for someone else to pick up and throw at us.

When we realize that it’s only through Grace and Mercy that any of us escapes a stoning, it’s then that the weight of stones feels too heavy, and we can wipe the dirt from our hands. We can trade in our stones for heart healing that results in perfect love. With perfect love comes compassion that no longer needs to ask, How could you?…because we suddenly realize that every one of us is capable of anything.