Most of my posts are to uplift and edify, to share experiences and to bear witness of Christ and His marvelous works. In this post, I still plan to share something that will hopefully edify, but at the same time I need to get something out of my system and onto something more tangible. I was deeply affected this past week when a coworker was talking about the numerous disabled employees that we have working (either physical or mental), which at the time was reasonable in context as we were discussing a potential new hire. What affected me was that she brought up two of my good friends in the conversation, both who work at my job location; While one of these two does indeed struggle with a couple of minor disorders, he functions very well in the work environment; The other individual has no known disabilities. I do not wish to go into detail of what this coworker said, and truth be told I blocked out her words after I heard the initial few things she said about my two friends, but her words pierced me. Her words that day affected me in two ways: 1) How often do I say something to another person about someone, and they are words that are unkind or may harm someone listening? 2) What about me?
To the answer of "how often do I say something unkind about another person?" I can only say, I really don't know. Before this past week, I never really paid attention to what I was saying. Of course, I watched what I was saying as to whether I was giving away someone's secrets, using improper language, or lying, but I didn't pay close attention to if I was saying something that would hurt another person. I realize that we can never be too careful about what we are saying around others. Perhaps the individual we are talking about in the moment will never hear what we said, but maybe there is someone nearby that hears and will be affected by our words. Interestingly enough and in connection with this post, that same day the general manager told a group of workers to be careful about what they are saying because he overheard one of our autistic employees (who mimics much of others' words) tell another employee, "I don't think anyone wants you as manager here." Regardless of what we say, there is always someone that listens and will either carry on the message or be hurt by what is said. Please be kind. Please be careful about what you are saying. Please don't hurt my friends. I assume everyone's heard the old adage, "Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but Words will never hurt me." That's very false. The saying should be more like, "Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but Words are daggers to me."
So what about me? I didn't think about this in the moment because I was hurt about what my coworker had said about my friends, but a day or so later I realized: Hey, she doesn't know this, but I could be included in that group. Sure, the employees she mentioned have OCD, Autism, Asperger's, and physical handicaps to mention a few, but what makes them any different than me? Diagnosis? They're floor staff and I'm a manager? Really? I have some of the same issues as a person with Asperger's, I have slight OCD, I have Social Anxiety, I have trouble talking sometimes and forming my thoughts, I can become too concentrated on something I'm doing that I forget what's going on around me, I have to walk on only brown tiles on slow days at work, I have to use the same broom for my entire shift if I decide to use one. Don't I have those same problems as the "disabled" employees? Too often people tend to categorize others because of one little disorder. A huge portion of people have some type of mental disorder, like depression for example. Does that really place them under the category of being "disabled"? Whether we are old or young, have a disability or disorder or not, are heterosexual or homosexual, are white or Asian, or Latino, or Black, we are all people. Isn't that enough? Will there ever be a time when we will not be categorized or separated? We all need love and help; we need someone to guide us. I don't know about you, but I'm just like the loving, intelligent boy with autism or the kind-hearted, quiet girl with down-syndrome (Only they're more pure and perfect than I am).
Hey, we are all God's children.
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