A woman was having lunch in London's Dorchester Hotel in 1942. Her tablemates were some girlfriends and a group of young soldiers who had been badly burned on the battlefield. The woman had the unusual nickname of Sunnie and had been driving ambulances in the Blitz. Wanting to do more, she had convinced the famous Hotel to begin offering free lunches for burns victims.
At this particular lunch, she was taken by surprise when the head waiter came to tell her that other diners had registered a complaint: their meal, they said, was being ruined by the presence of the veterans with their repulsive burns.
Sunnie got up and, having learned from the waiter which guests had complained, approached their table. To her polite enquiry, "Are you English?" the diners replied that they certainly were. Then in tones that belied the nature from which her nickname had come, Sunnie furiously demanded to know how they could complain about boys who had been burned fighting to save their very lives.
"Because they have burned faces, you can't enjoy your dinner?" she cried. "Well, too damned bad!" And with that, she picked up a glass of water and threw it in their faces.
Application: anger, justice. Sunnie shows us that not all anger is bad, that there is a time for a righteous anger which confronts evil perpetrated against others. There is a time to stand up against the wrong. Perhaps her anger, so brashly yet powerfully expressed, would cause those prudish diners to reconsider their pettiness.
Application: ingratitude, thankfulness, attitude. The story reminds us how easily we can be like those prudish diners, ungrateful for the things others, or God has done for us. We do this with God when we choose our own comfort and ease over the sometimes costly demands of loving him. After all, he gave his life for us!
Source: Catherine Hammond, Stories to Hold An Audience. Applications by Scott Higgins