A year later, he randomly ran into this woman elsewhere. She told him that his youth and earnestness had really stuck with her, even though he hadn’t said much intelligently and how she was now reading about the Catholic faith.

You just never know how the Lord is going to use you. This man obviously knew that the Catholic pregnant woman with two small children probably disagreed with him. Maybe your polite, non-aggressive response will speak to him.

I always thing of the clever thing to say about ten minutes after the opportunity has passed (if I think of it at all.) I’m terribly shy around strangers even if the subject of conversation is non-confrontational.

Knowing that about myself, after these sorts of encounters, I follow the advice of many of your respondents and memorize a good response. Then, naturally, that guarantees the subject will never come up again in such a way that the response will be useful.

I’m always amazed at people who can speak up boldly for the truth and always have a good response. My husband for example, when an acquaintance told him he’d had a vasectomy, my husband said: “I’m sorry,” and left it at that. Short and to the point.

I like the idea of asking the Holy Spirit for help. I try to remember to do so ever since the first time I saw that bit of good advice. But I’m usually so flummoxed I forget to even do that until it’s too late.

whimsy

So, objectively, you did the wrong thing. That’s what I usually do, too

I believe it was Ovid who said, “I know of the better way, and approve of it; I follow the worse.”

I can really sympathize with your plight, though. I have two major problems in those situations: one, I am a coward, and two, I fight really, really dirty.

So not only do I not want to say anything, I know that if I do, I will probably do it wrong. It is just that I hate error and illogic, and attack them ruthlessly. Sometimes there is “collateral damage” when I am dealing with people who don’t know me really well and how analytical I am.

I honestly don’t dislike people for being murderers, but most people assume that if you call them a murderer you don’t like them, and I just don’t know what else to call people who deliberately kill innocent people.

A few months back I ended up in a heated argument with a carpenter we hired to do some work in our sanctuary. Turns out he was a semi-militant atheist and he wanted to pick a fight with me. I was very unprepared for the argument (Figured he knew who we were and what we believed). The argument ended with my inviting him to church so he could see what we’re all about. He hasn’t come, but he does know that he’s welcome.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but in the moment it’s hard to know what to say and how to say it. As others have said, don’t beat yourself up. It would have been really easy to blow up and beat the guy up with words.

I was so shocked I just dropped the subject. I hope that if it ever comes up again I’ll be more brave and explore the issue with him by more questions as stevek suggested.

Try not to be too hard on yourself. I think that something great can come out of this if you spend a little time reviewing the great comments you have received, and create a game plan for next time. I agree with the first commenter, “These things never come up in conversation when you’re prepared, do they?”.

Your post reminded me of a breakdown I had last week, when I was at the immunizations clinic with my little set (this is a whole other story about *my* non-confrontationalism, since I’m not even comfortable with immunizations in the first place). Anyway, there was a lady there with her two grown handicapped daughters. I’m not sure if they were twins, because she didn’t say, but they were around the same age, and apparently had the same mental handicap. They were fascinated by my two perfect little ones, and I told their mom that they could play with them if it was OK with her. I held back a flood of tears as their faces lit up, and they made my baby boy laugh. I wasn’t emotional over them though, but as I looked into their mother’s tired, grateful eyes, it was all I could do to not leap out of my seat and throw my arms around her. I don’t pretend to understand things like why babies are born handicapped, but I do know that suffering produces gold in us, if we let it. I think that she was letting her daughters refine her.

We don’t want to be refined though, therefore we run from suffering. There is no other reason why a person would rather destroy a life than be “stuck” caring for it. IMO.

Jen, let me just take this chance to say, I LOVE your blog. I look so forward to reading it everyday! Keep up the good work.

Sarah

The weird thing is, I love to discuss and debate issues with people, especially people who disagree with me, but it seems like so many people either A) don’t want to talk about such things because it makes them uncomfortable, so they talk about Grey’s Anatomy instead, or B) aren’t capable of disagreeing with someone without getting angry. (I find that A is often the case in real life and B is often the case online).