WE DO NOT ACT LIKE THIS Thursday, March 17
Colossians 3:12: As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. When I think about the phrase “Choose Love, Choose Hope,” I think about my husband, Matt, and how he has handled aggressive encounters. 2020 was a hard year for many and my family was no exception. Matt went through a lot personally but has emerged very strong and assertive. Two incidents really stick out in my head of how Matt handled very appalling behavior with authority and compassion. The first incident was at our previous house. It was in the spring of 2021 when we had a big snowfall. Matt was out on the ATV plowing the road and driveways of our neighbors. Matt had our then 3-year-old on the ATV with him. A neighbor a couple of houses down, drove by in his truck, rolled down his window, and proceeded to chew Matt out for piling snow up where it would melt and eventually work its way to his driveway. Matt was rightfully upset about the aggressive nature of the encounter but was especially disturbed with the language the man used around our son. Instead of avoiding the hostile neighbor, as I would have (and did), Matt waited for the man to return to his house to talk with him. He went to his door and spoke to the man about his language and his aggressive verbal attack. The man tried to backpedal but Matt’s message was clear-- if there is a situation we need to discuss, we do it respectfully. We do not act like this. I was incredibly proud of Matt for handling a situation made to make him feel small, and instead he controlled it with grace and strength. The second situation might sound familiar because Pastor Doug used it in one of his sermons. We had just moved into our new home and hadn’t met all the neighbors yet. Everyone we had met was wonderful and we feel like we hit the jackpot of neighborhoods. We had noticed an older couple across the street. The man seemed to be a poor driver because he would park extremely close to our cars and sometimes up on the sidewalk. When my dad came to visit one day, we learned that the older man was actually being vindictive. He didn’t like when our friends or family would park on the street in front of his house/lot. My dad had parked in front of his house and the man backed his car purposefully into the front of my dad’s car. As we went out to assess the damage, the older man came out very aggressively, yelling at us for parking there. Matt took hold of the conversation and told the older man that his behavior is unacceptable and that is not how we act. If he has a problem, then he comes and speaks to us respectfully. We had also heard that the man had had a stroke, and, in the heat of the moment, Matt compassionately acknowledged the struggles that the man must be going through with his body. The man completely stopped in his tracks and thanked Matt for understanding. Matt clearly established that we wanted to be good neighbors to each other and that we expected better behavior. The man brought a case of beer to Matt the next day. If Matt is outside, the man regularly walks over to chat. Matt helped him fix his sprinkler one day and his oven another. They brought us pastries for Thanksgiving. We brought them flowers for Christmas. And most recently, the man came over when his wife fell and needed Matt’s help to get her up.
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Matt has taught me a lot with these situations, the most being that it is absolutely okay to civilly tell adults that their behavior is unacceptable. We have seen a lot of turmoil, injustice, and
