I’m currently lying down on the couch exhausted beyond belief, because I’ve had such an emotionally tasking day. I’ve also just come back from Marmara Park where I went with Olamide to see if they could fix the blender or at least get a new one or something, but they couldn’t and they didn’t’, so we bought some groceries and left.
Earlier today I watched a video on Instagram about compliments and it was basically like a documentary (?) where they gathered a diverse sample size of women and asked them questions about compliments that end with “for her age”.
The entire point of the documentary was that you shouldn’t qualify a compliment with “for her age”, and they also touched on other compliment qualifiers like “for a white girl”, “for an immigrant“, “for an Asian”, “for a thick girl”, etc. The documentary was titled “she looks good, period”. Link here: https://www.instagram.com/tv/B8GNWMXAcCg/?igshid=cv1op21l3cpx
I watched it, and while I understand the sentiment behind it, I think that it all ties into this offense culture that we have going right now. Some would also call it outrage culture, but I don’t think that encapsulates it, I think it might even trivialize it a bit.
I think what it really is, is offense culture. I think that right now, it’s cool to be offended at things. Anything really, and sometimes they’re things one should be offended by, you know things that are rightly offensive, the only problem is that offense is a horrible thing that eats you inside.
Like I told my friend, I think that it’s important to choose your own peace of mind by refusing to be offended by little things, and even big things. I think that instead of being offended at something that the other person probably means no harm by, we can choose to be committed to quality thoughts about ourselves and other people. I also think that even when we know that people meant harm by their comments, it’s important to also choose quality thoughts about them.
What does choosing quality thoughts about others look like? It sometimes looks like making up your mind to see the positive side of things. So some days that might mean believing that they don’t mean any harm, because sometimes they really don’t, and some days that might mean believing that they did mean harm, but it’s because something in them is hurt and broken, and that’s their way of lashing out.
You see we all need mercy sometimes, all of us, and God has been faithful enough to provide us with fresh mercy everyday, even when we don’t ask for it. One way to show love is by extending that mercy to your neighbor. Your neighbor that means you harm, your neighbor that treats you right, your neighbor that you don’t even know or see how they could possibly be of any use to you.
The truth is not everyone will be able to show mercy, and no one will be able to show you mercy like God, because honestly can’t nobody do you like God can. That’s why He’s God.
I personally have been undergoing a rather difficult lesson in letting go of offenses for a little over a year now, and I can tell you for free that it’s heart wrenching, heart breaking and frustrating sometimes, but it’s for my own good, and I may not know why, but I do know that God is good and whatever He lets me go through is for my own good, so no matter how painful the offense/insult is I let it go, and choose love and patience instead.
The entire point of this post is to tell everyone that getting offended might be cool right now, but it’s really bad for you. It’s bad for your mental health, your physical health, and your spiritual health.
What you can do instead is flip it over, and choose quality thoughts about yourself and others. You can also flip it and extend mercy and forgiveness in such a way that the other person sees God through the way you have chosen to love them.
Love, Yoma.
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