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Blogs by Stephanie S. Sawyer
Stand Up! 10/16/2007 10:57:04 AM
Speak your mind while the time is ripe. Back to the church pew incident....
Now I am furious!
Going to the mail box, I ran into my neighbor who asked me about my countenance. It seems I looked 'not quite as happy as last week.' (Is the honeymoon phase wearing off, or is the pew incident two days ago having an affect?) I believe it's the pew and the fact that I've had my head buried in The Highly Sensitive Person which I definitely am one. Not a bad thing to be!
My neighbor went on to explain after I had related the incident to her, that the same incident had happened to her only more demanding. Note that the neighbor is also a member of the same church. Stated congregant who is gossipy about being 'in the wrong pew', and 'taking another's pew' actually had the nerve to state to my neighbor one Sunday morning, "Get up and move." Imagine! Telling a fellow congregant to move because you don't like where they are sitting! What's the purpose of being there in the church in the first place? Self service?
The noted congregant making the demands is no one in authority, simply one who likes her certain pew.
By this time, I am encouraging my neighbor to join me in visiting with the pastor. I have a phone call into him at present. But no, she stated. She likes to "keep the peace."
And so my question that I am forever coming back to as I run through life: When is it worth keeping the peace and giving up what is rightfully yours? By giving up to the other's demands, the other party is winning, and therefore continuing on in the cycle of false behavior.
Now, my passive friends would tell me that that is God's business. Yet, I say that we are to hold each other accountable. That is the gospel. I say that giving it to God to let Him do it is the easy way out. I'm all for allowing/letting God to do it when I simply can't do it myself. But we are also His hands, His voice, His instruments on earth. Even Mother Teresa stated that. But perhaps He wants ME to do it! Perhaps He wants me to be strong. Standing up is certainly what Jesus did in the temple.
I thank God He gave me a passion to stand up and state what I think. I try to use that in the right places.... usually on paper... sometimes in person.... and most of the time, with forethought. What gets to me is when a person simply backs down saying, "No, just let it go on the way it's going on. I don't want to bother anyone." Then the problem never gets addressed. The cycle continues and carries on to others still ahead.
