My Evil Uncle Dennis

The toughest part of growing up, for me, was finding out that my family wasn't as perfect as I thought it was. My dad can beat up your dad, my mom is prettier than your mom and my Uncle Dennis...well, actually nobody says much about Uncle Dennis.

As I grew up, I found out why. He's not a good guy. In fact, he's pretty much as close to evil as a person can get. He has two children that he abused from infancy to the day they left home. No one in our family even knows where his kids are today. He does drugs, sells drugs, doesn't work, lies and steals from his elderly parents. He's manipulative, selfish, angry, lonely, and hurtful. He's the guy your mom warned you about hanging out with or dating when you were young.

I found out this morning that he is dying of a rapidly spreading cancer and has been moved to hospice. Dennis' wife won't make any decisions on his behalf and no one else has a legal right to. So, it falls to my mom, the bright spot in her otherwise dysfunctional family, to be the adult and step up once again. She has to tell her mother that her oldest son is dying. She has to fly to Georgia and sit with her ailing father as he mourns the loss of his oldest son.

But you know what kills me? She sent me an email asking that I would pray for Uncle Dennis to repent of his sin and turn to faith in Jesus. Are you kidding me? How do I pray blessings on a man who has been nothing but a curse?! I know that none of us deserve grace and that we all have earned God's wrath because of sin. But some have earned his wrath a little bit more.

I thought about how unfair it would be for Evil Uncle Dennis to go to heaven. I tried to picture him there and, surprisingly, I wasn't disgusted. I saw Dennis as God intended him to be - smiling, loving, generous, and grateful. That last one stands out to me. It seems that the person who would most appreciate God's grace would be the person in most desperate need of it. The truth is, I can't think of a more likely candidate to display the incomprehensible GRACE of God than my Uncle Dennis. No one deserves it less and no one needs it more.

So, without any reservation, I'd like to ask you to pray for his repentance and faith in Jesus too.