My first poll: "the aftermath"

So, this has been an excellent excercise showing how I often assume people understand things they way I do, because I've lived and learned in a certain way.

I must confess that this poll might have been "based on a true story." With the names changed to protect the "innocent," allow me to briefly explain my folly.

It was bright afternoon in Amarillo, Texas (all the great lifetime stories happen in Texas, I don't know why). Martha was preparing to leave to visit family in Oklahoma, she was running late. As she hussled out the door she remembered the chicken she'd purchased 3 days before that she hadn't yet put in the freezer. So, in her hurried state she asked Mary and Joeseph to "take the chicken out of the fridge put it in a bag and into the freezer." This made perfect sense to Martha.

Martha thought in those words that she had conveyed the following (because that's what she would've done) take the chicken out of the packaging it is currently housed in but it in a freezer bag (together or separately) and then put it in the freezer.

Mary and Joeseph heard please put the chicken in the freezer and minutes later thought..."why didn't she just throw it in there herself that takes like 2 second, but ok I'll put it in the freezer." Upon second thought Mary and Joeseph realized this common Martha-ism (giving what seems to Martha as clear instruction while in reality it is not). So Mary calls Martha, and Martha explains yes she meant take the chicken out of it's current packaging and place in a freezer bag (b/c this keeps the chicken from freezer burn and allows for longer storage time).

At some point Mary relays to Joeseph said instructions and yet another common communication problem (male to female misunderstanding) occurs.

So, Martha comes home opens the freezer and says to herself "why are all these baked potatoes in a Pay-less bag in my freezer" (pretend they have Pay-less in Amarillo). It quickly dawned on Martha that those were merely individually wrapped chicken pieces in baked potato clothing (aluminum foil).

This was a good reminder to me that I operate on some fundamentals that aren't as universal as I think. It's wrong of me to assume that because I do (or don't do) something in my way that anyone else would do (or choose not to) it that way too.

I have convictions (we're moving on past the chicken at this point in the story, I don't have convictions about chicken, just so we're clear, see I'm learning) that others don't, others have convictions that I don't. The Bible says we're supposed to live true to our convictions, but it also says we're supposed to learn and live together being tolerant (tolerant meaning we don't fight over non-sin issues but that we live in harmony with our differences) and seek not to do deliberate harm (spiritually, emotionally or physically) to each other as we all see where we can grow to be more like Christ with humility and gratefullness.

Ok, I might be stretching to get all this from a stupid chicken story that boils down to the fact that I didn't communicate well, and there might be more to Martha's story than you know...but I'm drawing some conclusions I find appropriate and sharing another occasion where God showed Martha she had some room for improvement.

I know many of the readers of this blog had this figured out long ago, I'm a slow learner and true to the character of a "sheep," I can learn 10 things today and forget them all by tomorrow. Which creates the unfortunate need to "re-learn" frequently.

God must sigh a lot as he watches me operate daily.