{"id":2334,"date":"2023-01-31T09:06:34","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T14:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2334"},"modified":"2023-01-31T09:06:34","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T14:06:34","slug":"pickled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/31\/pickled\/","title":{"rendered":"Pickled"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.
\u00a0
Daniel E. Sickles (1819-1914) considered himself one tough guy.
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As a New York City politician in the 1850s he was involved in a number of public scandals.
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When he learned that his young bride was having an affair with Philip Barton Key II (the son of Francis Scott Key, who had penned the words to The Star Bangled Banner<\/em>), Sickles didn\u2019t hesitate.\u00a0 While both men happened to be in the nation\u2019s capital, he confronted Key in the park across from the White House and shot him dead.
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Sickles was acquitted when he pled temporary insanity \u2013 the first time such a defense had ever been used in the United States.
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Even though he was singularly unqualified to lead men into battle, Sickles managed to secure for himself an appointment as a Union general during the Civil War.\u00a0 On July 2, 1863, while commanding the II Corps of the Army of the Potomac, Sickles was ordered to hold the center of the Northern line at Gettysburg.
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But Sickles had ideas of his own.
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He rashly ordered his troops to advance about one mile forward to a peach orchard \u2013 a site that would become one of the war\u2019s most infamous battlefields.
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Unprotected, Sickles and his men were assaulted from multiple directions.\u00a0 They never had a chance.\u00a0 Only the heroism of other units which rushed in to plug the hole left behind by the II Corps saved the Union from disaster.
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Years later, every principal general who fought at Gettysburg was memorialized with a statue somewhere on the grounds.\u00a0 Except Sickles.\u00a0 When asked about the absence of a memorial with his name on it, he said, \u201cThe entire battlefield is a memorial to Dan Sickles.\u201d\u00a0
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OK, then<\/em>.
\u00a0
The peach orchard did leave Sickles with an unusual souvenir.\u00a0 A cannonball shattered his right leg.\u00a0 It was amputated later that day in a field hospital.\u00a0 Ever the showman, Sickles had his leg pickled and displayed in his house so he could show it off to his party guests.
\u00a0
Unfortunately, the leg got the last laugh.
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Sickles was afflicted for the rest of his life with phantom limb syndrome \u2013 the sensation that his leg was still present.\u00a0 He had no way to scratch the itches and relieve the pains that his brain \u201cfelt\u201d up and down his absent leg.\u00a0 The tough guy had finally met his match.
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Something like that can happen with another kind of wound:\u00a0the kind you inflict on your own soul when you make some kind of grievous mistake.
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You blew it.\u00a0 You sinned.\u00a0 You screwed up big time.\u00a0 You wonder how you ever could have been so stupid, so impulsive, so selfish, so blind.\u00a0 Will you ever get past the shame?
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Even if you\u2019ve paid for your mistake, and even if those you hurt have forgiven you, it can feel as if the wound happened yesterday.\u00a0 The sensation lingers that you\u2019ve made such a capital mess of things that you don\u2019t deserve a fresh start.
\u00a0
From time to time people wonder what it means, when it comes to a relationship to God, to \u201cwalk in faith.\u201d\u00a0 Here\u2019s your chance to find out.
\u00a0
When we abandon ourselves to Jesus, we receive God\u2019s gift of the forgiveness of sins.\u00a0 That would be all<\/em> of our sins.\u00a0 The little ones and the ones that keep us awake at night.\u00a0 The ones that happened last week and those that changed everything 30 years ago.\u00a0 We\u2019re even forgiven of the sins that will happen tomorrow, and next week, and a decade from now.\u00a0
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Sometimes our regrets can feel so real that we\u2019re led to believe there\u2019s still a debt to pay.
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But the psalmist rejoices that \u201cas far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our sins from us\u201d (Psalm 103:12).\u00a0 Choose to believe that.\u00a0 Take it on faith.\u00a0
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Even if it doesn\u2019t feel that way.<\/em>
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The Dutch author and Holocaust survivor Corrie ten Boom was fond of saying, \u201cWhen God forgives our sins he throws them into the deepest sea, then puts up a sign that says, \u2018No Fishing.\u2019\u201d
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Win the battle that really matters.\u00a0
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Take God at his word that you are forgiven and free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here.\u00a0Daniel E. Sickles (1819-1914) considered himself one tough guy.\u00a0As a New York City politician in the 1850s he was involved in a number of public scandals.\u00a0When he learned that his young bride was having an affair with Philip Barton Key II (the son of Francis Scott Key, who had penned the words… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2335,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,561],"class_list":["post-2334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-forgiveness","tag-trust-in-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2336,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334\/revisions\/2336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}