03/18/2023
You need to stop holding their purse.
I know you may not be the one casting the stone, but often times we use that as an excuse…
And then we sit on the sidelines innocently…
As we hold the jacket and purse of the one tossing the stones.
We’re casually saying “Here girl, I’ll hold your stuff while you stone her…that way I can still feel self righteous while you scratch the itch of bitterness I have.”
Oof.
“She called me and brought her up…so I couldn’t be rude..I had to discuss it.”
“He hurt her…so I called to ask if she was okay and then of course we ended up gossiping just a tad.”
“Can you believe what she said?”
We need to learn to hang up the phone…
Truly.
We need to normalize awkward silence until the person casually puts down their stones and uncomfortably walks away.
We aren’t casting them…no.
But we’re cheering them on as they do.
Often we’re mad that they talked about us…
That they cast a stone at us…
So we walk over and grab a stone from the same gravel road of bitterness…
And we throw it right back.
At times we even cast the same stone that we’re mad that they threw over. 🤯
It’s ignorant for us to say “I CAN’T believe she talked about me….while never realizing we are doing the exact same thing.”
It’s comical to satan and heart wrenching to the Father.
We’ve made a habit of gathering stones and then offhandedly placing them in front of our besties so that they can throw them.
It’s a hard word.
It’s for me too and I don’t like it.
But it’s time we begin to leave conversations knowing that Jesus would be proud of our word usage.
It’s time we stop holding the belongings of Susan so that she can carry more of our stones to throw at Sabrina.
It’s time we stop acting innocent while allowing others to throw the stones that we secretly want to.
It’s time we stop nonchalantly setting up the scene for others to hate who we hate.
We’re weighed down with stones…
Because we’re gathering them to slowly hand to our friends.
And we can color and paint and decorate a stone to appear like pain or sympathy….
But the core of it is still cold and solid and something Jesus never recommended lobbing.
Every rock we put back instead of throwing…
Is one more inch…
One more stone…
One more step into building the bridge back to forgiveness.
Something we should consider.
Because I know we feel self righteous on the sidelines while others are throwing the stones we’ve gathered…
And I know we feel better…
But friend even though from over there we feel like we look kind and oh so clean…
We must understand that…
Unfortunately, we’re often just as mean.
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“For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.” 2 Corinthians 12:20
“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Ephesians 4:29
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