The gals had chosen "Livin' Loved" as their theme, with Ephesians 3:17-18 as their key passage.
I pray that Christ will live in your hearts by faith and that your life will be strong in love and be built on love. And I pray that you and all God’s holy people will have the power to understand the greatness of Christ’s love—how wide and how long and how high and how deep that love is.
What a great study for me!
...and still is.
In fact, I will probably be doing a fall retreat around the same theme, but with the addition of a couple of extra speaking sessions.
Thus, my focus-of-study this week has been Paul's most poetic passage in 1 Corinthians 13 - and I've been diving into each and every word.
If we "live loved," then
out of all God's love that's been poured into us, there is an overflow...
Right? "Sure," she says a bit sarcastically...
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous, it does not brag, and it is not proud. 5 Love is not rude, is not selfish, and does not get upset with others. Love does not count up wrongs that have been done. 6 Love takes no pleasure in evil but rejoices over the truth. 7 Love patiently accepts all things. It always trusts, always hopes, and always endures.
8 Love never ends.
It's right there: Love is not rude and is not easily angered.
Then came yesterday.
At the card aisle in Walmart.
This is a big month of celebrations: birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, Mother's Day... Hallmark makes a killing off of me. Every May I chide myself for not buying stock in Hallmark.
But, I always head straight for the $.47 section (I'll show them!)
There was a woman already there.
She was bent down picking out cards.
I didn't want to be "RUDE," because I'd been taking my study to HEART.
So, there was plenty of room, and I didn't want her to think she had to move on my account, so I stood there for a few minutes, before simply stepping to her left, and picking up a couple of cards to examine. My thinking led me down this conscious path to not say, "Excuse me," as I didn't want her to feel rushed. So, I grabbed the cards and stepped back, never touching the gal.
My thinking was wrong....obviously.
When she stood up and saw me, I got the GLARE.
It was an ANGRY GLARE.
A LONG and ANGRY GLARE.
She said in a huff, "EXCUUUUUUUUUSE me!"
To which I replied, "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought there was plenty of room and didn't want to bother you;" and, I stepped a little further back.
Her reply was another glare...the kind that lets you know you've been skewered and are prepped for the barbecue.
I didn't move (my bad...).
She did. Her forearm came across my mid-section, and, instead of stepping behind me, she forcefully shoved me back further, and stepped in front of me, throwing her cards to the floor...and began walking off.
I was shocked, nothing came to mind...except, "Whoa, there's no need to push..." and, the words rushed from my mouth before I could catch them.
She turned back to me, and with finger pointing in my face, let me have it. I'm thinking you could have heard her anywhere within a three block radius of Walmart. Here's the short version:
I was rude.
She'd never seen someone so rude.
I had been prolifically damned to hell...
So, I apologized and attempted to justify myself, "I'm so sorry; I really was trying to give you plenty of room and not bother you."
But, I had bothered her!
The fact is, she felt I had been rude.
In her mind, I had not taken her situation into account...and by not letting her know I was there, had apparently caught her off guard.
I learned a lesson of living loved, right there in the card aisle.
No matter what the situation (!), go to extra measures to think about the other person...
Ask: how will they view the situation, and make every effort to go to an extreme to live out love...
...with patience, kindness, a slowness to anger...
...and the opposite of rudeness:
COURTESY!
Obviously, I could use a refresher course from Emily Post.
PS. As I got in the car and turned the key over, the first words I heard were from Jeremy Camp's song, Christ in Me -
"I need the world to see that it's Christ in me..."
Accident? I think not.
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