The easiest leap to make is to jump to a conclusion. What we hear or see isn’t always what it seems at first.
After our third child entered school, I became the parttime, church secretary to brush-up my clerical skills. One morning while I was working in the office, several older ladies were quilting in the adjoining room. When I stopped typing to think about how I wanted to word an announcement in the bulletin, I could overhear their conversation. One of the women said, “Poor Debbie. Although David is the father of her expected baby, he doesn’t want to marry her.”
Apparently, the rumors I’d heard about the quilting circle being a gossip session were true. I immediately tried to figure out who they were talking about. Our congregation was small and I knew everyone so it shouldn’t be too hard.
Then, another voice said, “Oh, Volly, you missed the show yesterday. David got down on one knee and proposed.”
I was embarrassed. They weren’t talking about someone in the congregation–they were discussing a soap opera they all watched. I quickly returned to my work.
A similar thing happened one beautiful, spring morning. I had gotten the mail from our post office box and was walking a little extra by going past the west side businesses in town. I saw my older cousin, Bob, come out of the tavern and have a little trouble getting down off the curb. It was just noon so I wondered what was going on that he’d had too much to drink so early in the day. I stopped to greet him. He said, “I’ve spent the morning helping clean the church cemetery and my knees are the worse for wear. I just stopped for a beer to cool off before going home to lunch.”
I responded, “Good for you. I know it’s hard to find volunteers each spring.” I didn’t mention my bad thoughts.
Have you ever quickly jumped to the wrong conclusion?