Really, I do. I cried when I saw them building a Starbucks in Danville and knew I was moving away. The Starbucks on the corner of Friedrichstrasse and Kochstrasse in Berlin knew my order when I walked in and would bring it to me, rather than make me wait in line with the tourists. I've been known to leave my house 40 minutes early to drive to Marysville for a Starbucks confection and return to Bellefontaine for work before 7:30am. I especially love the delightful fall and winter holiday drinks. (Tell me that the words "Pumpkin Spice Latte" don't cause you to salivate. What, Pavlov's dog? Exactly.)
What I don't love is the preachy Starbucks cup.
I just don't need my coffee with a side of "I told you so."
Like the Starbucks cup, there is a church on my morning commute with outstanding and smart, but preachy signs. It is a church and therefore permitted to be preachy at me.
Usually, I can chuckle at the sign or take a moment to consider the thoughtfulness of the words or the interesting plays on phrases they make. This week, though, the sign knew.
It knew me.
Sometimes I want so badly to call out the people who have hurt or are continuing to hurt my family and me. I just want to fire off a list of grievances. Take that! And that! And THAT!
I want to tell them and others all of the ways they have wronged us and I, like the Zingbot 3000, want it to be bitingly painful. I want them to feel at least half of the pain they have inflicted. (And I hate that I want to hurt their feelings, but it is true. Sometimes I do.)
So, I was driving down Ludlow Rd., making internal lists of things I wish everyone knew about a few, select people, when the sign reached out and punched me in the throat.
"Don't let the littleness in others
bring out the littleness in you."
-Preachy Sign 2012
I was letting it happen. I was letting their smallness bring out the evil in me. I was allowing myself to be controlled by their hate. I was brimming with hate and vengefulness and spending my time imagining retaliation. None of it was worth my time or energy. None of it was worth sacrificing my character.
So, as much as I want to write and post a blog entry about the wrongs that have been committed and the wrongs that still seem to be coming at me from a few individuals, I refuse to let hate control me.
God is love, so I choose to be fueled by love. (With a side of fair trade coffee...)
Perfect entry. You always write with a nice sense of symmetry...ever returning to your original point and tying everything up with a neat little ribbon.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if I've ever known anything about God, it is that God is love. So I am partial to your ending sentiment. Rise above. It always comes down to your choices, your reactions, the good that you foster inside yourself.
I think everyone needs to be reminded that God is love sometimes and it never hurts to have a side of fair trade coffee either...
ReplyDeleteI needed to hear that today - thanks!