Diversity is about all of us and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together. I know there is strength in the differences between us. God made us all different to provide beauty and loveliness in the world we live in today. He did so to give us variety and diversity. Look at it this way. If all the spices were the same flavor, whatever we ate would taste the same.
Our differences include our experiences and how we react to them. To listen to stories in this uncertain environment where all of us are brought together by our uncommon condition is to discover that each situation, each loss, each relationship that is highly charged has some twist no one else in the world has experienced in quite the same way.
To listen to someone expressing their pain and making a determination that all pain is the same would be ludicrous. We must resist seeing our own sorrows as more devasting or less important than someone else’s.
None of us escapes adversity. In the world you will have trouble. Author Verdell Davis said, “Though we may endure the same disease, broken relationships, disability and failure, trying to compare sufferings is to ignore the unique dynamics of each individual life.”
A biblical writer wrote “be gentle, showing consideration for all.” Respect the differences between yourself and others, even when you have been through a similar experience. Do not barge in with a three-point speech to someone who is hurting. The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
We must all embrace diversity. You do not demonstrate the love of God by being forceful, aggressive, opinionated or acting like a know-it-all. You only do so by being peaceable, gentle, reasonable and full of mercy. The late John F. Kennedy, former president of the United States, said, “And if now we cannot end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air.” So Never Give Up! Never Give Up! Never Give Up!
By Chaplain Ghosten
chaplain@lhp.net
