What are You Talking About?

 Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a good week.

I saw something on facebook this week that made me know what I was writing about.

This:

And I really thought, this is good to remind everyone but I really don't think there is an age limit on this. 

Words hurt, and when people are talking about you, it hurts, no matter how old you are. And honestly, yes, it hurts worse when people just keep reminding you but it hurts even when it happens for a short time.

The last few years there has been a thing going around that says, "What other people think of you is none of your business." I don't know if it is different being from a small town or what, but I can't wrap my head around this. If there is someone out there that can tell me they truly don't care what anyone thinks of them, I believe I would show you a picture of a pretty lonely person. But maybe I am wrong. I know I personally care very much what others think of me.

I had an incident happen almost a year ago where I was told by several people things about my personal business that was told to them and of course, who told it. It killed me, and of course, just like the age old game of telephone and I am sorry, but also like the REO Speedwagon song :-), "tales get taller on down the line". 

By the time it got back to me, it had taken something that I had done and twisted it and turned it into trying to cheat someone out of something. I was heartsick, and I truly don't remember telling this friend anything, but I didn't know I had to watch what I said around them. Needless to say, I know now and I have come to see this person as someone who needs to make sure people knows they knows everything about everyone. And that in itself hurts. 

There is a big difference between being concerned and just wanting to know everyone's business. I am watching someone close to me go through some things right now and part of what has been standing in the way of healing is worrying about what everyone is going to think. If they hadn't seen and heard other people be belittled for the same issues, it wouldn't be so bad, but it has been bad.

So, I want to talk a little bit about gossip today.  There are a lot of verses in the Bible that lets us know gossip is a sin. 

Proverbs 16:28 says "A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends."

Proverbs 26:20 "Without wood, a fire goes out; without gossip, a conflict ceases."

Proverbs 11:13 "A gossip goes around telling secrets, but those who are trustworthy can keep a confidence."

Leviticus 19:16 "Never gossip. Never endanger your neighbor's life. I am the Lord"

Proverbs 18:8 "The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly."

James 3:5 "In the same way, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it boasts of great things. Consider how small a spark sets a great forest ablaze"

I could go on and on and on, there are many of them. It is wrong.

While researching for this post, I ran across this too, 

"Notice, we never pray for folks we gossip about, and we never gossip about the folks for whom we pray! For prayer is the great deterrent." 

Leonard Ravenhill

I also ran across this one, "Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you". I find that to be true. 

I learned years ago that when someone tells me something someone else told them about me, my first reply is, "and what did you say".

Remember that when choosing friends.

I don't know if I have less desire to just run and tell everything I know because of my job but I work in a job where confidentiality is a must and so I guess I just don't understand that just because you know something means it is your job to tell the world. 

I see a lot of people hurting and needing help, and many of them don't come to our agency as soon as they could for fear someone will find out and criticize them for being weak. In our office, gossiping is a firing offense. 

Let me bring this back around to the bottom line.

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is perfect. Nobody is immune to falling on tough times or getting off of their straight and narrow path, and NOBODY is good enough to be able to talk about anyone else's downfalls. If one single human was perfect, Christ's death and resurrection would have been a joke.

I leave you today with Mark Wills' "Don't Laugh at Me". If you normally don't take the time to watch the video and listen to the song, I beg you, please do so today. Make sure you see that part, "Don't get your pleasure from my pain."

See you next week.