You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Deuteronomy 6:7
I will never forget the lesson my grandfather taught me one sunny Friday afternoon in late summer, when I was fourteen. He and I were heading to staples- joy. He had to pick up something boring, like printer ink. We pulled into a parking spot by the front door- right next to a big white truck in the spot to the left of us. My 82 year old grandfather slowly opened up his car door and proceeded to step out while I climbed out of my seat.
As we stood up we heard a voice from the white truck, “Hey buddy,” said none too nicely. We both turned and my grandfather asked the guy in the truck if he could help him. The guy in the truck proceeded to chew my elderly grandfather out for banging his car door against his truck. Neither my grandfather or I had been aware that my grandfather’s car door had touched the truck, certainly not aware of any banging going on. The guy in the truck told my grandfather how he worked hard for what he had, and how dare my grandfather just bang the door of his truck.
I watched open mouthed- I had hardly ever seen someone chew my grandfather out and the only person who got away with chewing him out was my grandmother. I couldn’t believe someone was talking this way to my elderly, depression era grandfather who, let me tell you, knew the value of working hard to own nice things. Everything my grandparents owned was kept in immaculate condition. I was a little scared of what was going to happen to this guy when my grandfather opened his mouth. When the guy finally gave my grandfather a chance to speak I was surprised to hear my grandfather apologize, saying he didn’t realize he had banged the other guy’s door, he hadn’t meant to and would the guy like him to move. The guy settled down and told my grandfather he would move his truck. We went into the store, me fuming to myself about how my grandfather had just been treated, and when we came back out the guy was gone.
We got into the car to drive away, I mentioned something about the guy in the truck and I’ll never forget what my grandfather said. “You know, you just have to feel sorry for someone like that. What must be going on in his life to make him go off like that.” My grandfather shook his head, “He must really have a lot going on.” That thought hadn’t crossed my mind, I had been too busy being indignant.
My grandfather modeled such grace and compassion that day, the lesson he taught me has stuck with me all these years. We don’t know what other people are going through, we can’t control how they will react to different situations, but we can control how we react to each situation. We can set a good model for others- we can take a poor situation and turn it into a teaching moment- even if the only ones we are teaching are ourselves. We can try to be like Christ, which is the best we can ever do.