Day 25: Practice Forbearance in The Small Things
There has been a lot of shouting about our rights these days. Our rights to normalcy, to choosing whether or not to wear a mask, to send our kids to school in the fall, to open businesses that will fail without income. I’m not sure that all of those are truly our God-given rights, although if I’m still homeschooling in the fall, I believe the girls and I will all be shipped off to an asylum before next Christmas. Seriously. God help us if rainy season comes and we’re still stuck in this house.
At the same time, in community, we have to expect that our rights will get ignored or even trampled at times. We all deserve to be treated with kindness, to be respected, to be appreciated for our hard work and to have help when we’re going through a rough time. But we live in the real world where real people sometimes act badly and we have to decide what we’re going to do with that. Are we going to hold a grudge, always remembering that when we were in need, they didn’t show up? Are we going to wait until we are ready to forgive, allowing our justifiably hurt feelings to decide how and when our community will continue?
Sometimes living in the real world with real people means we don’t have the luxury of resentment or of the time it takes to forgive. I’m not saying forgiveness isn’t important, just that forgiveness is about us and our emotions. Forbearance is about our community. It’s a conscious act that sets aside our legitimate grievance and says, “I deserve better. But I am not going to require recompense.”
Forbearance is tricky because it can be so misused. How often have I been encouraged to paper over transgressions that needed a response? How often have I felt that I had to let something go because I didn’t want to make a stink? How often have I silently held onto a grudge because I didn’t feel like I’d ever had a chance to actually choose whether or not I held someone accountable?
Before we practice forbearance in community, we have to get comfortable with the idea of conflict. You can’t choose between conflict and forbearance if you’re too afraid to ever disagree. That’s not laying down your rights, it’s pretending false harmony is actually forbearance. So we need to practice forbearance with the little things.
Things like deciding to actually have conversations about the small things that drive you nuts, allowing for small conflicts. Things like letting people go ahead of you in line even though it’s really not their turn and they are 100% butting in line. Things like wearing a mask when it feels so strange and makes you feel like the world has turned upside down and you don’t even know if any of this even matters. We practice with the small things, so when the big moments come, we’re ready to make the choice that’s right for us and our community, whether that’s forbearance or recompense.
