Human Nature....sigh

I awoke this morning as usual, checked the weather report, checked my emails, and yikes. I had an email from my fellow room mom, apparently my child had spread a hurtful rumor about her son at school yesterday.

Are you shocked? Cause I was. My gut instinct was to go rip my child a new one, after all, she will NOT be that girl if I have anything to say about it. But then it just made me sad. She has a good heart, a really good heart, but she is still human. And her sin side shone through yesterday rather than her beautiful, kind, Jesus-loving heart.

So I calmly (but by the grace of God) walked downstairs, and tried as kindly as I could to listen to her side of the story (which was the EXACT same as the story from the mom in the email). Then I calmly explained to her that what she had done was gossip, and that she had spread a rumor that hurt this boy. I wanted to make sure she knew I wasn't attacking her, but trying to explain to her why it was wrong. I didn't want her to have any reason to feel defensive, after all she was going to have to eat a piece of humble pie to go to school and apologize.

I told her that even though she didn't think it was okay to keep saying the rumor (By lunch she had realized it was wrong), that she now had no control over what anyone else did with that rumor. She may not have continued teasing the boy, but because of what she said he was being hurt. Now if you know my daughter, you can see the guilt welling up in her now, as she realized the consequences of her actions. She got kinda squirmy, and I knew exactly how she felt. She was crawling in her own skin.

So now came the tough part; she needed to take action. Humble pie is a bitter thing to swallow, but it does a soul good. So we came up with a plan that she should say sorry to him; look him in the eye and say sorry for saying it, and acknowledging that she had hurt him. Then she was now responsible for standing up for him if anyone said anything about the rumor she started.

I have been praying for her this morning that she will be humble, and diligent to to the right thing. And that she remembers that squirmy feeling the next time she is tempted to start a rumor. After all, gossip in a woman's biggest temptation, even if she is all of eight years old.

And in all of this, I am thankful that the mom let me know about this, after all it afforded me a chance to teach my child an important lesson, now, when the consequences are relatively small. Hopefully she has learned this lesson now, and doesn't need to re-learn this lesson, again, later.