I have come to a point in my life where I am extremely discouraged with the terrible attitude displayed by others toward me lately. I have been judged to be a sub-par human by more people in the last 4 weeks than I have ever encountered in my twenty-six years of life. I am done. I will not stand for it any more. From now on, no one may tell me that I am a bad mother because my child sleeps in a crib. A crib is not "baby jail", a crib is not evil. A crib is not going to cause my child to die suddenly in their sleep. No one knows what causes SIDS. I will no longer tolerate being told I am terrible because of the choices I have made in the raising of my child. I will no longer be told that I can't take care of myself as a woman because I am a mother. I am both. I am a woman, and a mother. I am a mother and wife. Both relationships are important and I will spend time on both relationships. If that means leaving my toddler with a trusted babysitter for a few hours so my husband and I can go out, so be it. Do not judge me for taking care of my marriage.
I will no longer tolerate being gossiped about. The minute I hear of someone speaking ill of me or my family behind our backs, I will go to them and lovingly confront them as is exemplified in Matthew 18:15. If that is not received then I will react with following Matthew 18:16 and bringing another party in on it. And if that still is not received then I will go to the church with no hesitation. It's people from church doing it anyway, so hopefully it won't get to that point. But I cannot continue to live my life in fear of these people and what they might say.
I will no longer tolerate the attitude of believers towards one another. I will no longer allow it to be swept out of sight, but rather shine light on it so that the sin can be dealt with. When someone judges me based on my appearance (as happened last night when I was told I was not going to "get into heaven" because I have pierced ears), I will lovingly remind them that man looks at the outside of a person, but the Lord looks at the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)
I will no longer respond to someone speaking in anger, but will rather encourage them to correct in love if it must be done. I will not grovel before people who are too immature to accept an adult's sincere apology. If they do not accept a sincere and godly apology then I will shake the dust off my feet and be done with them (while still loving and praying for them to come around).
I have reached the point where I cannot ignore these things any longer. Christians have HORRENDOUS attitudes, especially toward one another. It is disturbing to finally be in a place where I am seeing what the non Christians are talking about. I have never been in a place where Christians are so unloving toward one another. It is shocking, and it is heart breaking. Something must be done. That is why I am finished with looking the other direction while everyone eats each other for breakfast. To quote Derek's current favorite movie "I didn't come this far to be breakfast!" (Finding Nemo)
Lost Things Found
5 months ago
Wholy cow! I feel currious about all you are talking about but I know it doesn't matter wether I know or not.
ReplyDeleteI said wholy cow, becuase I can't believe people would do that. It must be really bad if you have gotten to this point.
I am sorry you are going through this, but am glad you are able to do something different about it.
I can't imagine being a person who would do any of that.
I know you just moved down there and I assume to the church you go to now, and I can't imagine that people would already be gossiping about you. That's crazy!
Again, I am sorry you are going through this.
Thank you Shell. It has been pretty difficult the last few weeks but I am about to try to put an end to the gossip so we shall see how that goes! Pray for me please.
ReplyDeleteSarah, I'm so sorry to hear that you're dealing with all of this insanity. I'll be praying for you!
ReplyDeleteMarci
Man, I hear you! I get the same thing also all the time! "You shouldn't be speaking the local language to Yoseph, he'll never learn English and you'll stunt him for life!", "Your children should be the center of your life." "Yoseph should be in daycare." "Yoseph shouldn't be in daycare" (I love the conflicting ones!) And on and on. The only nice thing about being where I'm at is that it's completely socially acceptable to tell someone to MYOB. Still frustrating. I'll be praying for you. When you are in front of people as a the wife of someone in ministry you are a target, you're in the spotlight for woman to focus on and judge. And you have to be a model--not of perfection, but of broken-hearted, joyful following after Christ. So do what you need to do for your relationship with God, your marriage, and your children and tell the women to check their hearts if they cannot present their concerns or thoughts in a loving way. Okay that's my essay on the subject. And seriously come visit us.
ReplyDeleteWhat denomination thinks people with pierced ears go to hell? That is bizarre. I am a southern baptist and have never heard of that in my life (though I did grow up Catholic so IDK if that is something people used to think.) Whatever the case, it is not biblical. Those who criticize you would be beside themselves if they saw my 9 year old with her newly pierced ears! :) It sounds to me that you are where God called you to be to make some changes with all of this gossip going around. I don't experience this kind of thing at my church so it isn't all Christian, praise God! I pray that this church has a big turn around and peace for you while you wait on their hearts to change.
ReplyDeleteso my question is, where should your child sleep if not in the crib? It may seem like a stupid question, but it's been bugging me. just curious.
ReplyDelete