Our family tries to have a devotional each night together. I will be the first to admit that we don't make it every single night, but we try. Last night, we were reading in our favorite family devotional book, Sticky Situations: 2 and a real-life story was brought back to my mind.
My daughter, when she was in second grade, had a girl in her class who was from another country. Because of the girl's culture, she would bring "different" types of foods in her lunch each day. They looked and smelled quite different from those foods that the other children in the class would bring so some of the children at the lunch table would make fun of her. Obviously, this made the girl very sad.
Last year, when I attended the Poetry Reading for my daughter's third grade class, the same little girl was there. She began reading a story of a little girl who went to lunch at school each day and was very sad because the other kids in her class made fun of the food she brought for lunch. She described vividly how that made her feel. As I sat there listening, my heart was touched by her sadness. The girl went on to say that she had a special friend in her class who had heard those other children make jokes about her food. One day, that friend announced to all at the table, "Please don't make fun of her food. How would you like it if someone made fun of you!" From that day on, the girl's school-day experience was different and that "as long as Ally Jayne is in my class, no one will bother me." I was absolutely blown away because Ally Jayne is my daughter! God used my sweet daughter to impact the life of someone in an amazing way.
Leviticus 19:33-34 reminds us that "if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him." Sometimes, we may see people around town who don't dress like we do, eat the things we eat, or even talk or act like us. We should always make sure we treat them the way we would want them to treat us. Isn't that the Golden Rule?
Children teach us so much, don't they?
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