You'd think that in all my own blog posts that somewhere in my reflections, it would start to sink in for me personally, but alas, offenses still happen and I still get my feathers ruffled.
Without giving too many details {to protect the innocent}, I became offended recently by something that was said. So, I had some choices to make. Do I speak up to that person about it? Do I just let it go? Do I seek guidance from others? What do I do? The offense wasn't directed towards me personally, but spoke to my ethics. And as I've said before on this blog, I am a very black and white kind of person, so it's either right or wrong, not a lot of middle ground here. What I did eventually do, was seek guidance, and both folks I spoke to asked the same question, "Did you speak to this person about what they said?" And of course, my response was, "No, I don't feel like that's my place." Maybe you are starting to see my own dilemma here. I was the one offended, yet it wasn't my place to speak up? I know, not sound logical thinking, but it's the place I was living in. After prayer, and speaking to others, I did eventually talk to the person who made the remark that offended me and they were able to explain why they said what they did. While I didn't agree with their thinking, we were at least able to talk face to face and get it out in the open and be honest about things, so in that regard it was a win win.
I find it funny, but not in a laughing kind of way, that my two older daughters have been living in a similar place recently as well. My oldest beauty became offended by the pro life vs pro choice debate that a family member began on Facebook. Not exactly the place to air ethical conversation, and not with a 16 year old who doesn't yet understand social media etiquette entirely yet. She responded to said family member, who then in turn (even though they are much older and should have known better) responded back. As my daughter is relaying this information and story to me, my thoughts ran towards the "No, no, no, no, stop" realm. In our afternoon commute, we had the hard conversation about how you need to let it go, not respond, it will never end well, you will get angry, they will get angry, Facebook is not the place for this conversation, and on and on. She wanted to "unfriend" this family member over this, and again we had that hard conversation that you can't "unfriend" a family member just because they offended you on a very deep level, and how it's best to just hide the post, and LET IT GO! To which my other daughters and I break out into the Frozen song from the movie.
My middle beauty had a similar experience with a friend at school, 6th grade girls mind you, so that should really explain all you need to know. And her initial reaction was to argue right back with the student.
It makes me question my own reactions to offenses and what I'm showing my girls, because after all, our kids model what they learn and see. So, when offenses happen, and they most certainly will continue to happen, it's choices we have {which I've posted about before, choices, choices, choices}. Our attitude should be one of "So what" and move on from there. But it should not be one of arguing, talking to others before talking to the offender like I did, or even "unfriending" family. I got offended, so what. The end.
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