Offended.

Oh, how easy is it to be offended?  And if we're honest, if we slow the wounded bus down a bit and really think about it, how often did the other person probably mean something innocent?  Or at the very least, did not mean to offend you?

I know it's especially hard online.  You can't see faces, hear inflections, etc.  I've had tiny things online bother me and  it  is  so  silly.  I've been praying that God help me to not be offended so easily.  Hopefully with time, I can manage my emotions better.  Because it is one thing when your mind understands that the person did not really mean to offend you.  But going farther, I want my heart to actually accept it and forget.

What an easy sin.  I think I can call it a sin?  Definitely a product of our fallen nature.  In a perfect world, we would all say the perfect things and we would all be pure.  But we don't live in a perfect world... and I think the desire for this sort of perfection in interaction leads to the desire for political correctness.  But once again, we're fallen.  Not everyone's PC is the same PC.

And the mass email/quip/forward/joke/message that someone sent out--they didn't think twice about it.  They read it at face value, it didn't throw off any alarms when filtered through their own personal experiences, and they sent it on.  So when it reaches you, and you're hit with the emotion of whatever personal experience it dredges up for you, try to remember that it was not sent out of maliciousness.  It was not intended to hurt you.  Try to be objective.  Take those extra moments to hold the wounded bus back a stop.  Address it if you need to--and address it with LOVE.

And the comments you receive on some post that you don't fully understand or sound hurtful or rub you the wrong way or simply don't agree with you?  Stop.  Think.  Ask.  And make sure that you act in LOVE.

This whole offended thing is simply too easy.  And can I dare say that it's easy because it's selfish?  And what do each of us know better and come to the defense of more than our own selves?  I wish I wasn't so selfish.  I wish I didn't care about me nearly as much as I do.  I wish I was concerned with myself a fraction of what I am.

So my goal for the immediate future is to take on offendedness.  (Yeah, I used my understanding of English to make that a word.)  Offendedness, I am going to fight you.