Breaking the Gossip Chain Part 1

Gossip: Casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.                     {Google definition}

Gossip:  Exaggeration or fabrication of a story, regarding somebody other than the tale bearer, in the absence of this person who is being discussed - for the malicious purpose of demeaning, slandering or tarnishing this person's reputation.                                                                                       {Urban Dicitionary definition}

 

Gossip has been around since the beginning of time.  We know this because there are several verses in the Bible that mention gossip and how we are not suppose to participate in such.  

Here are just a couple.

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“Then they would be guilty of breaking their previous pledge. And if they are on the list, they will learn to be lazy and will spend their time gossiping from house to house, meddling in other people’s business and talking about things they shouldn’t. 1 Timothy 5:12-13 New Living Translation 

^“Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip.  They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents.  They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy.  They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.” Romans 1:29-32 New Living Translation

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“Full of every kind of wickedness”.  Wow.  Those are powerful words.  As I was reading through what is mentioned in Romans 1:29 as wickedness, I quickly thought hate, greed, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, and malicious behavior; “yes, those are horrible things, sinful things, that I definitely do not want to be apart of”.  Then I read “gossip” was on this list of wickedness and was kind of surprised.  I knew that gossip was “bad”.  Who hasn’t been told not to gossip?  After all when gossip is involved you get a lot of he said she said, pointing fingers, back stabbing your friends and most of the time gossip involves lies.  Now I don’t know about y’all but I don’t want to be involved in this “wickedness” that the Bible talks about.

But wait, how do I not gossip, it’s everywhere? What do I do when my friend sends me a Facebook message, text, email, or hand written note and it’s full of gossip?  What do I do when we are sitting around the lunch table at school and Meghan brings up the latest trail of boyfriends that Samantha has?  I still want to be friends with these people, what do I say to them when it comes my turn to give my opinion on why Jamie shouldn’t go out with Chris?  Well, it’s something that we have to work on.  And work on it we will!

Join us as Kayla {my 13 year old} and I work on Advice on Breaking the Gossip Chain.

When Cyber Bulling Hits Close to Home

We had to go to Kayla’s school the other morning for a cyber-bullying incident.  One where Kayla was the victim. 

I am sure that my child was not entirely innocent. I am not one of those parents who paint their child as “perfect” and could do no wrong.  But I also whole heartedly believe that what she was allegedly blamed for had absolutely no grounds to have the repercussions that took place.

This all started a couple of months ago when a boy {go figure; it is what we girls always have gotten jealous over since the beginning of time} broke up with his girlfriend at the time to ask Kayla out.  Kayla turned him down.  He went back to his girlfriend and ask her back out.  Well, I’m not sure that I’d be one happily open armed girlfriend taking him back. I’m not sure what her answer actually was either.  Now fast forward a to this past week and a Facebook message from said ex-girlfriend to Kayla.  I’ll call the girl H.  H ask Kayla why she texted said boy and called her a {blank} and then proceeded to say how Kayla was going to get beat up because of this and then some other not so nice things.  Kayla came to me not wanting to go to school the next day, worried.  Because the girl that H said was going to beat her up had been in trouble for fighting before.  Well, I ask Kayla if she had done it because what I was about to tell her to do could potentially blow up in her face, if in fact she had called her this word. Kayla denied it and so I told her what any mother would have said, “tell her to show you the proof”.  After all we all know that these days you can easily just take a screen shot of something and voila there is your proof.  So that is what she did, but instead of the girl sending her the proof, she basically blasted back at Kayla asking her “you calling me a liar, I saw it”.  Well that honestly tells me that it’s not true.  I also want to mention that said boy told H not to tell Kayla either.  Again, lack of evidence. 

Well it ended with Kayla not saying anything back other than you don’t have proof, so I didn’t say it.  Well the girl ended on a very ugly note saying that she wouldn’t care if Kayla were shot or stabbed and that this girl at school, we’ll call her M would beat her up when she got the chance. 

Now I thought it was odd that this girl was going to have M do her fighting for her, but come to find out, H moved to Georgia!  She moved a couple of weeks ago.  I’m just not putting my opinion on her not even living here anymore out there, because it’s just crazy that she is starting drama in another state.  Anyways.

Then a friend of Kayla messaged her on Facebook and said that some other girl, we’ll call her A had posted a status about Kayla and sent her a screen shot of it with the comments.  Plain as day one girl, we’ll call her S made a threat that said she was “gonna whoop Kayla’s {blank}”. 

Well I printed off all of this from that screen shots to the message from H about M gonna fight Kayla and where S was gonna beat her up and took it all to the school. 

We talked to an administrator and was assured that Kayla was safe and that if she felt threatened or similar come to the office and tell her.  We also found out that the boy that supposedly told H what Kayla had allegedly said, well the administrator said “he’s been known to do this kind of thing before.  we’ve talked to him about it”.  And she called the class and had the teacher send him to the office as we were leaving.  Oh and I’d like to mention that one of the girls that was mentioned, either S, M, or A {Kayla said she thought it was S} was serving him for a couple of days for a situation already and that she would talk to her.

WHAT IS WRONG with kids?  And I do say kids, because we are talking about 13 and 14 year old girls/boys!  I don’t understand.  EVEN IF Kayla had called the girl a {blank} was it even necessary to add in all this other stuff, threats and mentions that she wouldn’t care if Kayla was stabbed or shot?  Seriously. 

Kayla said that if she did call H that, it would have been last year because since January when we started going to church, she has stopped gossiping {which I can attest to because I monitor her FB like a hawk and her phone has been turned off since about February} and cussing with her friends.

Kayla came in from school this afternoon and told me that A had deleted the status that we have screen shots of and that she got dirty looks all day from A, S, and M.  But other than that, she no longer felt threatened.  Thankfully! 

I just have to say that nothing is solved with violence.  And that I’m just flat out agitated with the way kids act in this world today.

{image and more information can be found at stopcyberbullying.org}

Publix Fresh Savings Event and a $25 Publix Gift Card Giveaway

**giveaway closed**

We do most of our grocery shopping at Publix and have for years.  Who loves to save money on groceries?  Publix makes it easy week after week with their fantastic B1G1’s and other money saving deals.  I think that is when we buy our snacky type foods and what not.  It’s just such a great offer and seriously I have yet to find these items cheaper any place else.

Ok, enough about my love for Publix…now on to their newest promotion.  Starting April 24th, {which was yesterday people!} Publix’s newest promotion is Fresh Savings.  And what that exactly means is that you can shop the perimeter of the store {you know where all the fresh stuff is located}, and then make your meals complete by adding condiments and sides from the middle.  When you purchase participating products you can save on Publix brand items like eggs, chicken breasts, fruit, and so on.  Don’t forget to print out your coupons at freshsavingsevent.com!  And check your local ads to get the offer details on participating products!  The Fresh Savings event will end on May 8th, so hurry in today!

Now on to this giveaway!  I’m giving away a $25 gift card to Publix so that you can shop at my favorite grocery store!!

To enter:

1.  Tell me what your favorite grocery store is to shop at {it doesn’t have to be Publix}.

2. For an extra entry, follow this blog, via link on side bar. ---->                   And leave an extra comment!

Giveaway will end on Sunday April 28th.  I will email the winner, so PLEASE be sure to leave your email address on your comment!! 

Good luck!

"The information, products and General Mills gift pack were provided by General Mills and Publix® through MyBlogSpark."