<----This was the one reaction that stood out strangely different from the rest. (see last comment) I'm going to call her out on this. You know why? Because this is not a fight; this is what bullying looks like. (side note: she is someone from my home town. Her family knows my family and visa versa. It's not like we are oblivious to each other-therefore when she added me as a friend, I accepted) While I have many thoughts, and feelings about this.. the main thing I want people to know is, this makes me sad. Sad for her, for her family, for those around her. It has been a week and I still open up my inbox to people reassuring me that her words are not true. I know that. But I would be lying if I said I could remember another thing about those comments except for what she said. Or that I didn't look back and re-read her emails again. Or that I didn't get up at midnight, pour a glass of wine, a hot bubble bath and cry. It hurt, and I held a pity-party in my honor. Then I got over it.
The next morning, I read this to my oldest two kids AND my responses to this person. I told them that when someone is hurtful to you without reason, it is bullying. When someone does this, you don't duck your head and keep walking. You stop....stop everything, and tell someone, everyone... make it public. Don't hide. If I were to hide, her words might come true. They eat you alive from the inside. The first day's responses from others made me feel encouraged. But again, the next night, I started "believing" these hurtful things again. It's how satan fights his battles. In secret, in the dark, when he thinks no one is listening. I'm posting it here too. This is public. This is how I fight... in the light.
Moms, we don't need to tear each other down. It's ridiculous. Society today has painted mothers (as a job status) as pretty much worthless. We aren't "real" women until we can balance both what a man can do, and run our households - all without complaining. While some amazing women can do this wonderfully, I am not one of them. Society has also labeled children as a burden. So when you have as many as I do, then I get no right to complain because I asked for this, right? Pile on the fact that my husband "CHOSE" to be in the military knowing full well he might deploy... I must have asked for this, right? Um, not true.
Everyone you meet is fighting a battle. No one gets to say if your battle is big or small, hard or easy. A battle comes in many forms. We need to stick by each other, and not tear each other down because you just don't know what the other person is fighting. My week was horrible. So was her's apparently.
Something in my profile "life" struck a chord with this person. I don't know what it was, but it must have hurt. Anger is a secondary reaction.. one you give sometimes after you are hurt. Her lashing out at me was a secondary response to something else. And although I feel sorry for her, that she felt the need to do this, I also recognize it as an untruth. It doesn't need to be said because it's mean, and also it's false. Don't bring negative to my door and drop it off.
She lives in a very small town. I used to live there, remember?! It's great in so many ways. But a small town also has demons. You can't mess up once, without the whole town knowing about it. I would know... I lived with a pastor for a dad, a neighbor who was my principal, and the town cop down the road. My dad could be working an ambulance call in the next town over, and I would mess up at school, and my dad would find out before the class period was up. (ask him sometime how amazing small town scanners are). So when I became an unwed mother at a private Christian university... you can bet the whole town knew about it. And they haven't forgotten.
Here's a life lesson for you- it's not about how you mess up, or what you do. It's about what you do AFTERWARDS that speaks volumes to your character and reputation.
If you had to pick on someone, I guess you picked on the right person. Because I live my life in such a way that if someone were to speak ill of me, no one would believe it. It doesn't mean I'm perfect or better than you... it means I'm real. You can't criticize me more than I already viciously criticize myself. I've battled the fear of failure and won myself back to the reality that honest is most beautiful.
"There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are." -Brennan Manning
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