I received an angry and unkind comment on my last blog post sometime overnight. It is the first time that has ever happened to me, and while I welcome questions and criticism (and I certainly don't need to be flattered constantly), I was stunned that my musings on my little blog were thought to warrant such a rebuttal. The comment was anonymous, and I'm sorry that it was because I would prefer to be able to pursue a private conversation with the person who left it for me rather than writing publicly about it.
I deleted the comment reflexively. I have dealt with a lot of unwarranted personal attacks and critical spirits over the last few years, and have developed some ingrained responses to those sorts of things -- they all involve shutting it down, shutting it down, shutting it down, and refusing to accept the harsh words into my heart where they can continue to hurt me. So because my fingers flew on the laptop to protect me before my stunned brain had fully registered what I read, the comment is gone and I can now only paraphrase it here. If who are out there, whoever left me that comment, and now angry at the injustice of your words being responded to without the actual quote -- if you still feel that way, leave me the comment again, and I will edit it in here.
The words were something like this, "Who could possibly be immature and arrogant enough to presume all that knowledge? Especially for a Christian -- where is the student of God pursuing humility and grace?"
Dear anonymous person, that was precisely my point. My 20 year old self was immature and arrogant to presume that I knew everything. I have been humbled over the last six years, and that process continues daily, and I now count myself privileged and blessed to have intimate knowledge of the strength and love of Jesus -- and very little else. It was humbling even to write that blog post and to make myself vulnerable as I did, and I hoped it might be an encouragement to others who are also experiencing being taken down a peg (or twenty!) by the realities of life. God meets me there, when I am discouraged by the fresh realization that all my "knowledge" is foolish and vain, and He reminds me of the knowledge that truly counts, which is His love filling my life.
I suppose I can now count this as another humbling experience on the journey of life. :-) And I appreciate the reminder that this is not a private journal, nor shared exclusively with those who know me well and will likely understand my heart even if my words are not as clear as I think they are.
Maybe they didn't pick up on the sarcasm / intended tongue-in-cheek humor that you were using? I thought you did a good job of writing it in a way that made it obvious that you were kind of making fun of your former self, but some people don't pick up on humor. (The poor folks.) I definitely had to humbly nod my head and chuckle along with you!
ReplyDeleteI am so sorry that someone reading your post did not understand the content as it was meant to be,however it is their loss not yours. I found your post to be a very honest and humble acceptance of yourself and it shows that you have made yet another great stride in your journey of life at finding out one more very important lesson. The more you learn, the more you realize how much more there is to learn, and that it will take the rest of your life doing so. There are many teachers to influence your life along the way, however you have chosen to learn and listen to the ONE who holds all the wisdom you will need. Keep on growing Sister! And keep on sharing your insight as there will be alot more who appreciate and "understand" the meaning.
ReplyDeleteOh, that's funny. Well, not funny. More like roll-your-eyes annoying... I've had people leave comments on my blog too that are so weird, it's like, did you even READ what I wrote?? How could anyone read it and misconstrue it so far? Like when I wrote all about how much bad evidence there is against having fluoridated water, and somebody was then lecturing me about how I should research how bad fluoridated water is. Seriously. And I wrote a post on my finance blog all about how I was learning to be content with driving an old car, and how I'd worked out the numbers again, and how I knew it was worth it. And somebody responded with a lecture about how I should learn to be content with driving an old car and work out the numbers and see how worthwhile it turns out to be.
ReplyDelete*eye roll*
Anyway, for what it's worth, I thought it was a fantastic post, and obviously I'm not the only one, because it got picked up and reposted! Yay! And ditto to your last paragraph... on this post... I guess I keep learning that too.