My pride: a story from 20 years ago
Today I remembered a story from my childhood - a new story to tell my children. That makes a total of 2 stories.
Just kidding; my memory isn’t that bad, but usually when they ask for a story they get this:
“A story from my childhood? I never was a child; I was born as a small adult.”
Then I get this:
“Mom!“
So they were happy to get a new story, and this one even had a lesson built in. Here it is, preserved for posterity. Because I will forget it again.
When I was 14, my mom had a friend from out of state come to visit for the weekend. Kathy decided to go to church with us but didn’t have a dress for Sunday. Since she was about my size, mom asked me to loan her a dress.
Uh-oh. This is where foolish pride kicked in. (Is there any other type of pride?) I didn’t mind sharing at all, but I thought my clothes were shabby. I was ashamed of what I had to loan, and didn’t want her to go flipping through the shabby hangers in my shabby closet, making small disappointed faces at my shabby clothes.
Kathy never would have done so, but pride is sneaky like that. I wasn’t thinking of Kathy. I was thinking of myself, and in my head, that was exactly what she would do.
So I did the sensible thing: instead of letting her choose, I picked out a dress for her - the one I deemed least outdated, and handed it to her in the hall.
She thanked me sweetly and wore it to church the next day, without ever peeking into my closet. All was well.
Almost.
The next morning, my own selfish pride loosened its grip on me and I realized that I had chosen exactly the wrong color and style for Kathy. She wore the dress without a hint of complaint, but in a small way I have been haunted by the incident ever since.
Did she hate the dress? Did she know why I chose that one for her? Did my own pride result in shame for her? I know that our clothes are not supposed to be important, but we all know how it feels to wear something utterly unsuited to us, and clothes were not really the heart of the issue. My pride was the issue.
I didn’t want her to see the real me, and my attempt to impress her with a better image ended up being ineffective and worse, unkind. I was concerned about myself, and failed to show love to a sister.
Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves.
Do not let each man look upon his own things, but each man also on the things of others. Php 2:3, 4
If you're new here, please take a moment to introduce yourself! If you enjoyed this post, feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
You loved it, right? Here's more like it:
Did you enjoy this post? Subscribe so you'll never miss a new post!
Filed under: Christian living, memories
I am glad you are brave enough to share this here. It’s in the little things our flaws hide, it’s up to us to identify and acknowledge them like you did and work to correct them to our best knowledge. Thank you for sharing.
what a true blessing. 8 beautiful children. beautiful!!!!!!!
All sin can be sneaky like that.
Isn’t it weird how we ‘project’ our own worries and thoughts on others, without giving them the benefit of the doubt? That might be the real problem–not seeing the best in others and giving them their own chance to show it. The way you said, “Kathy never would have done so” (re: snubbing your wardrobe) tells me she’s a very nice person! Well, it was a missed opportunity, but I would guess you have made up for it many times over. And it’s a great lesson for the kids: “who are you really thinking of when you do something? Yourself, or the other person?”