Loving the Unkind
Janis Buelow (DCE Intern)
From Take Heart: 100 Devotions to Seeing God When Life’s Not Okay
By Patricia Raybon
“For when I am weak, then I am strong.” – 2 Corinthians 12:10
I finished my faith essay on an airplane, writing on scrap paper to capture my thoughts. “Your editor needs it now,” I was told, so I hurried to finish. Then there it was – an eight-hundred-word piece published for the world to see.
My best writing ever? Not by a long shot. Perfection is a high bar, in writing for sure, but also in life. Yet when I looked over readers’ comments about the essay, I was struck by one distinct element – their unkindness.
I’d written about my daughter’s experiences as a Muslim convert who daily wears the hijab. She gets stares and glares, especially in airports and on planes. Rather than suspect her, I wrote, let’s do the courageous thing and love – across faiths, across race, across cultures. To love, yes, like Jesus. It wasn’t an original thesis, but I sought to be positive. Then I read the comments.
Talk about hate. This was hate unleashed. A spewing fire hose of put-downs, vitriol, ridicule, ire – I can’t list enough negative words – gushed forth without apology.
This woman is an arrogant fool.
They are both idiots.
The woman is dumber than the daughter.
You should have raised her better.
I wasn’t hurt by such comments. I just wondered what kind of person feels justified unloading on another human being with no regard whatsoever for that person’s basic humanity. Internet anger? That’s the term for the unkindness flung daily across the blogosphere. The weapons? Hateful words.
We all experience it. On the internet, for sure. Verbal abuse also happens, however, in homes and families. You might be reading this, and this very day you might’ve been put down by a family member, a coworker, or friend – someone who, by all rights, should be offering not hate but love.
So how should we react? The apostle Paul urged us to rely on God’s strength, not on our own. Paul says, “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10).
God indeed knows when you’ve been stung by someone’s unkindness. So don’t lash back. Instead, give your hurt to the Lord. And to the other person? Respond in love, even if you feel weak – knowing that in your weakness, you’re strong in God.
In His love we build bridges, not walls. That is what the world needs.
Lord, people can be so unkind, and it hurts to be on the receiving end of it…Let me be shaped by Your kindness and help me to react in the strength of Your love. Amen.