One day, a woman was walking down the street and, according to her, she saw a terrible scene as she looked in through the window of her pastor’s house.
Imagine: her pastor was running after his wife with a broom. She could hear the wife screaming and running around, and she saw the husband running after her.
There was no doubt: the pastor was beating his wife. The woman spread the news around town. She told everyone she knew, and, because she was still not satisfied, she began telling strangers as well.
Before long the whole town knew about the pastor’s inappropriate attitude.
Due to what happened, the leaders of the church met and took the necessary precautions. They removed the pastor from the ministry and communicated their decision to him. He, very wisely, accepted the decision without saying anything to defend himself. He just made one request: let me do one last farewell meeting this following Sunday, and invite everyone who could attend.
On the chosen day, after a short but uplifting evangelical message, he invited his wife to come up to the pulpit and explain why he was being fired.
She said in a loud and clear voice:
- My husband is being removed from the church because of a Hasty Judgment! I am aware that the decision to remove him was because he hit me. I never complained to anyone about this, and I couldn’t, because what really happened was that while I was cleaning, a mouse appeared and I started running around the room. Because I am afraid of mice, I screamed and ran. My husband saw what was happening, grabbed a broom and began to chase the mouse to kill him.
If this is a good enough reason for my husband to be removed from the church, we will move to another city, if not, I would like the person who spread this lie about my husband hitting me to come up here because we (my husband and I) are ready to forgive the person that made this mistake.
Everyone that was present knew who had spread the rumor, so the woman did not have any other choice but to go up there and ask for forgiveness. Then, the pastor said to her:
- I forgive you, but you will have to do what I am about to ask you, okay? - She replied affirmatively.
Given her response, the pastor presented her with the following instructions:
- I want you to take a feather pillow, go to the top of a hill on a windy day and release all the feathers into the air.
"That's easy!", she must have thought. But the pastor continued:
- The following day, go back and collect all the feathers and put the pillow together again, exactly like it was before.
- Oh, pastor, that is impossible! After the wind blows around the feathers I will never be able to gather them together again. - She replied.
- This is exactly what you did with my life! After you spread that rumor, the people of this town will never see me the same way. We will move to another city, but we would like to leave you with this life lesson:
Never judge anyone hastily, and do not spread what cannot be recovered.
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