Turning the other cheek


Dutch
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Hi! I'm new here, a Saint in Florida.

I have a question I am hoping I can get some thoughts. We hired a contracting team who stole from us, we filed a police report, and I wrote a review online. It was 10pm when we found the electronics taken, and my knee jerk reaction with thier office being closed was to take it to my community online and let others be aware. We called the office in the morning and they had already read The review. The manager came into our home, we were thinking he was going to apologize but instead accused us of slandering him.  ( Everything I wrote was true of course.) 

That accusation hurt more strongly, more deeply than the items that were stolen. They did not apologise and I was furious at the unbelievable way this was handled. Now they are sending an area manager out to speak with us and I am fearful of getting the same tretment. I don't want to let him in my home. I have been having panic attacks over this. 

My question is, what as a Saint is right? Should I have not written the review? Let him come and slander me? Upset me all over again when I am trying to heal from this? When do we turn the other cheek and when do we stand up for our rights?

Thank you. ❤🙏

Edited by Dutch
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Guest MormonGator

Hey bud! Welcome to the forums. As you can probably tell, I'm from Florida as well. 

Being a Christian doesn't mean being a doormat. If you were absolutely, 100% certain that something was stolen from you, than you should have no guilt whatsoever in writing the review. 

I'd be nervous as well if I had someone else from their company coming over to my house. Can you get a member of the church (maybe a ministering teacher?) to come over so you have a witness/someone to back you up when the manager is coming over? 

Praying for you my brother. 

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52 minutes ago, Dutch said:

Hi! I'm new here, a Saint in Florida.

I have a question I am hoping I can get some thoughts. We hired a contracting team who stole from us, and I wrote a review online. It was 10pm when we found the electronics taken, and my knee jerk reaction with thier office being closed was to take it to my community online and let others be aware. We called the office in the morning and they had already read The review. The manager came into our home, we were thinking he was going to apologize but instead accused us of slandering him.                   ( Everything I wrote was true of course.) We filed a police report as well.

That accusation hurt more strongly, more deeply than the items that were stolen. They did not apologise and I was furious at the unbelievable way this was handled. Now they are sending an area manager out to speak with us and I am fearful of getting the same tretment. I don't want to let him in my home. I have been having panic attacks over this. 

My question is, what as a Saint is right? Should I have not written the review? Let him come and slander me? Upset me all over again when I am trying to heal from this? When do we turn the other cheek and when do we stand up for our rights?

Thank you. ❤🙏

I'm sorry you were mistreated and I hope you are able to resolve these problems quickly. While we should strive to forgive and live charitably, we are also supposed to stand against evil. One of my favorite stories in the Book of Mormon is in Helaman 2:6-11. It tells of a servant of Helaman who basically became an undercover cop, and exposed a conspiracy to murder Helaman. By standing up to the Gadianton robbers, this unnamed servant saved Helaman's life. In your case, by exposing the criminals in this organization, and turning your evidence over to the police, you are preventing these people from taking advantage of other innocent people, and hurting them as well. Stay strong, and remember you don't have to let anyone in your home that you don't want to, so don't let that area manager bully you. 

Edited by Midwest LDS
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Thank you thank you so much for your kind warm words. Thank you for helping me to be able to think about this better in a tough situation.

My husband will take tomorrow off work for the meeting, he thinks the guy will be giving us a peace offering such as some money off, me, well, I'm a bit more less trusting than that.

We were supposed to pay the workers a check but the manager said to hold off until tomorrow when he comes, so that is where my husband is coming to that conclusion.

It has been a good time to be able to talk to our children about hanging an eternal perspective and for my husband and I to work on bettering our marriage etc... and strengthen our faith that all things work for our good and we are learning lessons even though hard things. (Especially.) And I found this message board that I am enjoying. 😁

I struggle with the turning the other cheek/where is the line? I want to warn others, but want to forgive...I so appreciate your insights. Thank you, thank you. It is nice to have a place to talk to others about the application of the gospel.

Edit: You know, you are right, I am being bullied! And I think I'm caving and rethinking and being confused because they are insisting I am wrong and its weird because I was robbed! They are trying to lessen it and not take responsibility for thier business. I will pray to be strong for tomorrow. Thank you. ❤

Edited by Dutch
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1 hour ago, Dutch said:

It was 10pm when we found the electronics taken, and my knee jerk reaction with thier office being closed was to take it to my community online and let others be aware.

Maybe next time confront someone first and give them the chance to make it right first, before going public.

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2 hours ago, Dutch said:

I struggle with the turning the other cheek/where is the line? I want to warn others, but want to forgive...I so appreciate your insights.

Forgiving doesn't mean that we ignore the demands of justice or pretend that the hurt didn't happen.  They did, and things have to be paid for.  And you reviewing them for the service you received is totally ok.

What forgiveness does mean is letting go of the anger/hurt in your heart, rather than letting it ferment into soul-sickening bitterness.  You don't forget that something bad happened or ignore justice, but you also open your heart up to Christ's healing so that you can emotionally move past the hurt.  

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11 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Maybe next time confront someone first and give them the chance to make it right first, before going public.

This is a good reminder for all of us:

Quote

D&C 42:88 And if thy brother or sister offend thee, thou shalt take him or her between him or her and thee alone; and if he or she confess thou shalt be reconciled.

I imagine all of us have reacted in ways other than how this scripture teaches.  I appreciate the reminder to apply this principle broadly.

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11 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Maybe next time confront someone first and give them the chance to make it right first, before going public.

That's a good point @NeuroTypical. You want to be very careful about making public accusations before you know all the facts. 

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12 hours ago, Dutch said:

I struggle with the turning the other cheek/where is the line? I want to warn others, but want to forgive...I so appreciate your insights. Thank you, thank you. It is nice to have a place to talk to others about the application of the gospel.

This is an easy principle.  Putting it in practice is where the struggle is.

So, I get to do the easy part of showing you the principle, and you get to do the hard part of figuring out how to apply the principle into practice.

Our objective in life is encapsulated in the Great Commandment to love God and love others as ourselves.  Not just love others.  Not just love ourselves.  But love others and ourselves in equal measure.  How do you put Love into practice?  Well, Love means to do as Christ did for us - so Love put into practice is that which brings us closer to Christ.  So, to love others as ourselves is to bring others WITH US closer to Christ.  It's a balance.  So if what we do brings us closer to Christ but brings others farther from Christ then it's not balanced, so we would want to do something more to bring others closer to Christ.  But if what we do brings others closer to Christ but brings us farther from Christ then it's not balanced either, so we would want to do something more to bring ourselves closer to Christ.

And that's pretty much it in a nutshell.

P.S.  Forgiving is a requirement.  We must forgive.  But forgiving is not mutually exclusive to warning others.  So @NeuroTypical actually gave a very useful insight.  So as not to do undue damage to the other person as we strive to protect ourselves and others, it is best to hold off on any action that may harm the other person before he has a chance to offer an explanation/correction/remedy to the situation.

Edited by anatess2
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On 1/10/2019 at 7:16 PM, Dutch said:

My question is, what as a Saint is right? Should I have not written the review? Let him come and slander me? Upset me all over again when I am trying to heal from this? When do we turn the other cheek and when do we stand up for our rights?

Thank you. ❤🙏

Those are some great questions.  I struggle with those as well.

Recently, I feel that our neighbor cost us $50,000 to $70,000.  I make a good wage, but because of our high medical cost in the past few years, we really needed the money.

Our house we sold near the end of November appraised for $220,000.  We had to move to a different city.  Unfortunately we lived next door to what most people in town would refer to as the town psycho (it's a small town).  This lady screams at everyone.   Whenever someone would come look at our house she would scream at them and sometimes call the cops at them for "looking at her yard" and "making her dogs bark".  When our kids were younger they couldn't play in our yard because the lady would constantly threaten and yell at them.  We would try to make peace by bringing her treats and goodies.   The only thing is she knew where I worked and if I ever did say anything she would call my work and start yelling at my boss.  Even when I switched jobs, my company vehicle had our company phone number on the truck.

It wasn't just us she would yell at and call the cops on; it was all the neighbors.  Our other neighbor was a police officer and she was always calling the cops on his wife!

So, after looking, no one wanted to buy our house.   A lot of people said they wanted to buy the house (we kept dropping the price), but that there was no way that they would live next door to that lady.

The house was in great condition and was newly remodeled and had a fully landscaped yard.  It had a nice view too.  The only thing that kept it from selling was our neighbor.  (The market isn't that great in town and home prices are way down, but we priced the house very well so it should have sold.  It appraised for $300K two years ago). 

We eventually sold it for $149,000, which was $71,000 below appraisal.  For verification, here is the house and you can see what we sold it for by looking at the history:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1054-Breeze-St-Craig-CO-81625/104590576_zpid/

1693148762_housesale.JPG.834af809b5b8e32a6dc5675a3096ca37.JPG

It is for sale again.  The only thing I can say is that I wish the new owners luck in selling it.

I was afraid to do anything when we lived there, because she knows where I work and she will call my work and yell at them several times a day, which is not something I want to happen.

Now that we moved, I don't know if we could take her to court, so I guess we'll just suck it up and turn the other cheek.   I'm sure that there are plenty of ways that we could try and take revenge, but they won't do us any good and it's not the right thing to do.  We have to forgive her, but that's easier said than done.  

 

Edited by Scott
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On 1/10/2019 at 9:16 PM, Dutch said:

Hi! I'm new here, a Saint in Florida.

I have a question I am hoping I can get some thoughts. We hired a contracting team who stole from us, we filed a police report, and I wrote a review online. It was 10pm when we found the electronics taken, and my knee jerk reaction with thier office being closed was to take it to my community online and let others be aware. We called the office in the morning and they had already read The review. The manager came into our home, we were thinking he was going to apologize but instead accused us of slandering him.  ( Everything I wrote was true of course.) 

That accusation hurt more strongly, more deeply than the items that were stolen. They did not apologise and I was furious at the unbelievable way this was handled. Now they are sending an area manager out to speak with us and I am fearful of getting the same tretment. I don't want to let him in my home. I have been having panic attacks over this. 

My question is, what as a Saint is right? Should I have not written the review? Let him come and slander me? Upset me all over again when I am trying to heal from this? When do we turn the other cheek and when do we stand up for our rights?

Thank you. ❤🙏

Where I live you can call the police and if you know the time of the potential conflict, ask for ‘escort to keep the peace’. The police come and just stand there looking at the two of you. I have done this myself. The police officer was a big help, gave good advice and came to visit latter to see if I was ok.

You can tell the person that you would be happy to meet them in the lobby of the local police station. 

Edited by Sunday21
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