Don't Lose Your Distinction

I'm a southpaw (left-handed) and proud of it! Some of the most extraordinary people who ever lived were/are left-handed. Benjamin Franklin, Babe Ruth, Oprah Winfrey, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and President Barack Obama, to name a few.

I remember a particular encounter that I had some time ago. I was at the take-out counter of a local restaurant, waiting to place my order. When I signed for my food, the lady who served me noticed that I was left-handed and commented on it.

She shared an interesting story with me about her husband. When he was a child, his teachers forced him to use only his right hand when writing. They believed in irrational practices about allowing children to favor their left hand. So whenever he was "corrected" about writing with his left hand, he would get a sharp whack on the knuckles with a ruler. 

Wow!

I've heard some strange and misguided tales about left-handedness, but this one was disturbing. 

Why would someone go to such lengths over such a small thing? What would explain this strange aversion to this distinction? 

After doing a little research, I learned an interesting fact. Being left-handed was often associated with being "evil" or "clumsy." So to deter any negative tendencies, people who believed in this ideology thought they were doing a good thing by trying to make the left-hander conform to writing only with their right hand. 

When it comes to hand preference, Southpaws are usually in the minority. But being in the minority can have its advantages. Consider the little-known biblical story of Ehud, a left-handed man from the tribe of Benjamin. You can find his story in the third chapter of The Book of Judges. 

In those days, it was typical in warfare for a man to strap his sword or knife to his left side and strike with his right hand. However, God saw fit to use this man, Ehud, to get close enough to his enemies to destroy him by using his dominant hand - his left hand. Because of that oversight, his enemy never even saw him coming. How clever!

The lesson here? The next time someone feels so threatened by whatever God uses to make you distinctive, consider it a blessing, not a curse. Don't allow their fears to become your problem. It's your distinctiveness that God intends to use. Don't you dare lose it!