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Intentions, like fruit, can turn sour. No matter how sincere our desire to be helpful, the whole endeavor may go askew.

Take for example my beach friends Al and Edith. For months Edith suffered severe pain in her shoulder. Al, being a caring husband, wanted to help her. He read in a magazine about a pocket-size gadget that may alleviate pain by transmitting impulses to nerves. The cost was no object. He just wanted to do something to help Edith; so with their physician’s approval, Al ordered the gadget.

Together they excitedly took the gadget out of the box and carefully read the instructions. “Sit over here on the sofa, Edith,” Al said, “and let’s get rid of that pain.”

Eagerly Edith moved to the sofa. Al placed the small machine in her lap and attached the electrodes to her shoulder. “Are you ready, Edith?”

“I guess I am, Al,” Edith replied with some hint of anxiety.

Al set the impulse control on the lowest position, pushed the “on” switch, and sat on the sofa beside Edith to watch the little machine perform its miracle. Five minutes or so passed as they waited with great anticipation.

Just then Penelope, the family poodle who had been sitting on the back of the sofa, jumped into Edith’s lap. As she did, her paw hit the control button, pushing it on “high.”

Edith sprang to her feet. Dancing around the room she was screaming, “Oh...oh...oh!”

Al, now knowing what had happened, was startled and frightened. He frantically chased Edith around the room, his arms thrashing wildly as he grabbed for the gadget dangling from the electrodes still attached to her shoulder. Finally, he steadied it long enough to push the “off” button.

Edith flopped on the sofa utterly exhausted. Gasping for breath, she mustered a shout, “Al, between you and that dog, you are going to electrocute me.”

“Gosh, honey,” Al replied, “I was only trying to help.”

Al was telling the truth. What happened to him happens to many of us. Our intention is to be helpful, but it turns out to hurt instead — emotionally, physically, maybe both.

There is no better time to remember this sort of thing can happen than when you are on the receiving end of the hurt.

The Bible’s advice, “When someone wrongs you, it is a great virtue to ignore it” (Proverbs 19:11 TEV), is both wise and beneficial. But it is not easy to heed. For many of us it is extremely difficult; we don’t easily get over hurts someone inflicts upon us.

Maybe it would be easier if we remembered Al and Edith’s experience, and learned to concentrate on the intention rather than the outcome.

If the other person’s intent is to help us, even if it turns out to hurt instead, encourage yourself to be thankful rather than bitter. Seeds of bitterness cannot sprout or grow in the soil of thankfulness.

Be thankful you have someone who cares enough about you to want to help. That person is one of your most valuable possessions.

(Dr. French O’Shields is a Gaffney native and a retired Presbyterian minister.)