tommyTALK
Cattywampus
Fred Craddock, pastor of Cherry Log Christian Church in Georgia, tells the story of visiting a cemetery in South Carolina.  While walking through the graveyard, he noticed a particular grave marker that indicated the position of the grave was at a right angle of the others.  Craddock’s story follows:

All the other graves were lined up in a row, but this one grave was crosswise or, as we used to say, ‘cattywampus.’  At that angle, it actually took up three burial plots.  I pondered that.  What a careless thing to do.  Why would they do that?
 Suddenly I became aware of another man walking around in the cemetery, perhaps for the same reason as I was.  I said to him, “Are you from around here?”
 “Yeah,” he said. “You’re looking at that grave, aren’t you?”
 “Yes.”
 “I knew that fellow.”  The grave marker recorded that the man had died in 1994 in his seventies.  “We were in the same church.  I knew him well.  Knew him all my life.”
 I said, “Why this burial at an angle?”
 “Well, the family wanted that, and the church agreed.”
 “But why?” I asked.
 “Because that’s the kind of guy he was.”
 I said, “What do you mean, ‘That’s the kind of guy he was’?”
 “He was crossways with everybody and everything.  We never knew him to be pleased about anything at home or at church.  ‘Well, why’s she doing that?’ he’d say, or ‘Why’d they ask him to do that?’ or ‘Well, he’s the wrong one to be doing this,’ or ‘Well, I wonder who decided to do that?’ He said that kind of stuff all the time, all the time, and the family decided they wouldn’t try to change him just because he was dead.  So they buried him crosswise.”
 “That was an awful thing to do,” I said.
 “They wanted it to be a witness.  The family said if God wants to straighten him out then God can straighten him out.  But he left here just like he lived.”

That’s what’ll happen to you and me.  We’re going to leave here just like we lived—Glad or grumpy.  Some people are just grumpy, and it’s sad and unfortunate that a lot of these unhappy people frequent one of the gladdest places on the planet—the place where Jesus-followers congregate.  Still, some people are just never glad about anything.  They live life cattywampus; they’ll be remembered as a cattywampus Christian—always crossways with everybody and everything.   Sad deal.

Paul wrote to the Ephesian believers, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.  And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”  (Ephesians 4:31-32 NIV).  Next time you want to complain, gripe, or grumble about something or someone “you don’t like” in your family or in your church, may the Heavenly Father whop you on the head and remind you that the ONLY one in the universe who has any right to grumble about anything or anyone restrained His privilege to do so and instead lovingly and mercifully laid down His life to save all those living life…cattywampus.

Category : Tommy Talk