“I know what I know. I do not need to hear anymore!”
His face was red, his blood pressure was rising as he stood there yelling and cursing at the top of his lungs. He had worked himself up to the point that those around him were concerned he was going to have a heart attack.
“I don’t need to hear anymore. I know who was wrong and I am going to deal with it. Do you understand?”
What he didn’t know was that he was being lied to, and it was a huge lie.
“John” is a retired gentleman who lives down the road from my daughter and I. He is an intensely emotional man, though he refuses to admit he is emotional. He has had some family issues going on with his daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter. Unfortunately, child protective services have been involved and his great-granddaughter was removed from her home and put into the foster care system.
John was beside himself.
As I listened to him rant and rave I could not help but feel bad for him. He was making a fool of himself and he didn’t know it. His daughter had lied to him. She had twisted the facts of this situation just enough to get the sympathy and protection she thought she needed from her dad, but at an enormous cost.
Watching the situation, and knowing that the end result, the day when he realized he had been lied to, was going to be a devastating day. I wanted someone to tell John the truth, but yet I knew he was going to have to ride this situation out. He was going to have to get hurt before he could see his daughter for who she really was. Talking to him would do no good, he was in the “papa bear” protect mode.
You all know what that is, right? That is when a parent protects their child no matter what. The child could be glaringly wrong, but a mama or papa bear protects, defends, and annihilates whoever they need to for the sake of their child.
Even though his daughter is almost 40, he still was in the protect mode. He still was refusing to hear all the facts. He was in his own “don’t confuse me with the facts” world.
He had jumped to an ill-informed conclusion, a conclusion that was causing significant emotional pain to all those family members around him.
I couldn’t sit there and listen for very long. Within a few minutes I had to leave. I knew I was on the outside looking in and I needed to mind my own business and walk away. Sometimes that is the hardest thing to do, to walk away.
Yet, I knew in time the facts would come out, all of the facts, and justice would prevail. Whether you call it karma or reaping what has been sown there is a natural law in the universe that says, “eventually you get what you give.”
For the next several days I thought about John and his family, and I thought about all the times I made ill-informed decisions. I thought about those times that I had intense knee-jerk reactions and the pain I inflicted on my family, and I couldn’t help but hurt. Some of those decisions, though they were made years ago, are still being felt today.
I also remembered how I was like his daughter, twisting and omitting certain facts to serve my own needs, and my stomach churned.
It is so easy forming a decision, or judgement, based on partial information. It takes time gathering all the facts, weighing the information, and forming an opinion. Just watch the nightly news and those who are reacting to several high-profile verdicts. Emotions are running wild. Lines of division have been drawn, and no one is interested in the facts, just the emotion.
I feel for John. I feel for his daughter and granddaughter, but most of all I hurt for the young child caught in the middle. The long-term effects will be substantial, that much I know.
Sometimes I think “the universe” allows people and circumstances to come our way to remind us of who we use to be, and how much growth has taken place in our lives. Maybe it is to give us hope to keep pressing on.
There is a quote by one of my favorite speakers that I love and I think applies to this situation.
“I may not be where I need to be, but thank God I am not where I use to be.” 1)
Is the universe talking to you today? If so, take the time to listen, for in the listening process you may find the hope that is needed to keep pressing on.
1) Joyce Meyer
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