Brenda’s Blog – August 12, 2025
“Not my fault, not my fault, not my fault!” Four year old son Jeff was mumbling to himself as I walked through the den. I stopped to make sure I was hearing his repeated chant. “Jeff, what are you saying?” “I am practicing for the next time the girls blame me something I didn’t do.”
Having two older sisters often put him in precarious situations. The concept of personal responsibility had not fully matured in the girls’ characters, so Jeff was an easy target.
An unspeakably horrible catastrophe has literally inundated much of central Texas – a flood which has taken hundreds of lives. Reporters are saying that many of the missing will never be recovered as they are buried under tons of river sludge, and debris.
The first response was truly Texas Strong – thousands of volunteers covered the miles of devastation searching for any sign of life – and painfully recovering those whose lives were taken by this tragedy.
But way too soon voices seemed to rise above prayer and singing – the voices of recrimination and the ugliness of finger pointing. “Who is to blame?” was a constant theme on newscasts. “They caused this by their political policies.” Or, the detestable, horrid statement: “They deserved to die because they voted for such and such.”
It is as if a group had prepared for “such a time as this’ with their accusations, vitriol, and hatefulness were primed and ready. Too many are incapable of accepting the responsibility of civility. Too many have the assignment of blame as their default social response.
“How can we help? How can we provide comfort and care? How can we show the grace and love to Jesus?”
When we were young (and still immaturely eager to find fault) our Mom would remind us “Remember, when you point a finger at someone else there are four pointing back at yourself.’
Scripture teaches us to bear one another’s burdens, to have compassionate hearts, and pray diligently. That is what people should hear us practicing as they pass by.