Little Miss Perfect

To you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you.

“Oh no, not Taylor,” Hailey scoffed to the girl standing next to her. “She’s Little Miss Perfect.”

From across the locker room, Taylor froze. She had just finished changing out of her gym clothes and was about to leave. But as Hailey’s words echoed off the lockers, she stopped in her tracks, her heart pounding.

From Hailey’s tone, Taylor could tell her words weren’t a compliment. Conversations in the room died down as the other girls looked over at Taylor—but she couldn’t think of anything to say. After seconds that felt like hours, Hailey waved her hand dismissively and left the room with her friend, laughter in their wake.

The conversations started up again as Taylor awkwardly bent down, pretending to tie her shoe. Inside, she was confused. She and Hailey weren’t friends, exactly, but they weren’t enemies either. Taylor always tried hard to be nice to others, and Hailey’s unexpected words felt like a punch to the gut. But even as she straightened up and left the room for her next class, she remembered what her dad always said when other people’s actions didn’t make sense: You never know what their home life is like.

Sometimes people hurt others because they are having a hard time with something or feel pain inside. The truth is that people don’t do or say unkind things because of you. They do them because of themselves.

The Bible tells us to love our enemies. Just like Taylor, we may feel attacked when we least expect it. As Christians, how should we respond? We can start by remembering that the person’s actions might be caused by reasons we don’t understand. We can also watch our responses. Even though Taylor was speechless in the moment, she also didn’t say anything she would regret. When we’re faced with a situation where someone is being unkind, we can choose our words or our silence wisely to show love even to our enemies.

Things to Think About

• Why do you think Taylor’s dad reminded her that someone’s home life or circumstances may be the source of their unkind words or actions?
• We can’t control how someone acts toward us, but we can control how we respond. Write out a list of ideas for how you might choose to respond when someone says something unkind.

DAILY ACT OF FRIENDSHIP

If someone says something unkind to you today, respond with patient silence or kindness rather than retaliating with mean words of your own.