So an unfortunate encounter with a police officer yesterday really got me thinking; since the comment was made "ugh, cops..." after having encountered this extremely rude, disrespectful, arrogant and condescending cop, I realized this one cop makes us think of all cops. Don't get me wrong I have the utmost respect for police officers and what they do, our cities would be chaos without them. But ones like this, who obviously don't think about what their actions are reflecting on their shield and their department, they make all cops look this way, which is why many have such a negative view of them.
If you know my husband you know he is extremely kind and respectful, (a product of a single mother who wasn't afraid to put her foot down) so when faced with this situation he hardly said anything but yet the cop continued to be rude and demeaning to my husband, while me and my parents were in the car. Now I definitely have encountered nice cops, I've been let off with a warning by a couple, it must be different for men getting pulled over than women because that cop already had it made up in his mind he was going to write a ticket. (We're going to contest it by the way because he definitely wasn't speeding, anyways...I'm also hoping the fact my husband was black had no bearing on his decision.) Not to mention the cop had to add in there "and with a baby in the car, I'm definitely going to notate that on the ticket" which honestly was an obvious sign that it wasn't our car he caught on the radar with so many cars passing us, my husband would NEVER speed with Ava in the car. Anyways I digress...
This cop disgraced himself and his department by his actions and attitude and tone of voice. Had he approached the situation differently I would have had a totally different view of him, he would have just been doing his job. But he didn't. This made me realize our actions reflect upon anyone or anything we have a connection to.
As a Christian, my actions are looked upon as such, and can either negatively or positively influence how people think about Christians. Not just that, upon the church I attend and the pastor of my church. Do we really want our actions to be the reason someone looks down upon any of these? I understand as a Christian we are definitely going to do, say, or act on things people may not agree with, but many times it's the spirit in which we do it as to whether a person will say "ugh, Christians" or "I respect your views, but I don't agree."
The same can be said for all our connections, even if you aren't a Christian, they way you act or speak reflects upon your family. Be it spouse, parents, siblings, grandparents, etc. You may be making a bad name for your whole family and not even realize it. But that's the point, we need to realize that our actions have ripples that go far beyond what we may ever see. Whether or not those ripples are positive or negative depends upon us...
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