When no one is looking…

One Sunday several months ago my daughter was waiting in the car while I finished up a conversation inside the church after the service was over. People were getting into their cars and leaving and someone accidentally backed into our car. They stopped to look at the damage and then left. No one else was in the parking lot at the time and they didn’t know that my daughter was in the car. After they left, I came outside to get into the car and my daughter told me what had happened and who had backed into our car. I looked at our rear bumper and cleaned off a fairly good sized section where paint had transferred from the impact from the other car and noticed cracking under the paint. I thought they would probably send a text confessing what had happened and apologizing for it but they never did acknowledge what had happened. The damage was minor and we would never have asked them to pay anything so I decided the relationship was more important and I never confronted them about it. I am not holding a grudge against them but I think about it once-in-awhile and it IS a good lesson for my children to learn. Not only a lesson about “turning the other cheek” and about forgiveness but we have always taught them that character is who you are and what you do when no one is looking. And this was a perfect example to them - one they will remember.

I am absolutely against suing anyone - especially other believers. We should be able to work out our differences without involving the courts system. I would rather accept the wrong than destroy a relationship by taking someone before a judge. And in the above example, I was wronged and that’s okay.

I am actually glad this happened (and our car is 13 years old so we didn’t feel it was worth taking in to be fixed since the damage was minor) because it has been a great real-life lesson for my children. For them to recognize that there is always the potential that someone IS watching even when you don’t think anyone sees you. And even if you are right about being unseen by human eyes, God is ALWAYS watching. It is good for all of us to be conscious of our behavior when no one is looking in the same way we are when people are around us.