Quite FYI: One Last Breath is now on sale for $0.99 on Amazon. http://amzn.to/2ipGxGg Now on to the blog.
Bad Character in Time
Which is worse? A female teacher who takes a partially nude photograph or the boyfriend (another teacher) who releases said picture once she’s left him? How about said female or the principal who allowed other male teachers in the same school to view this photo before confronting her? That’s what happened to fired New York City middle-grade teacher Lauren Miranda.
Sure she made some huge mistakes. One was taking the selfie, the second sending it to someone she thought she could trust. However, if we were doing a report card on character, she’d be far ahead of the men involved in this news story.
Your character shows who you really are. Ms. Miranda is a foolish woman who allowed herself to be put in this predicament. We hear these stories all the time of pictures getting released after a breakup. However, making a mistake does not necessarily show bad character, especially when Ms. Miranda was twenty-one or twenty-two years old. I shudder just thinking of the dumb things I did at that age. Thankfully there was no internet around for it to go viral.
Bad character comes from knowingly harming others. If the boyfriend released the picture (they are saying they don’t know how it got into circulation), he did so to purposely hurt Ms. Miranda’s reputation. And the principal went out of his way to humiliate her by showing the photograph to others.
Galatians 5:22 says … the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness… I don’t see much in the way of the spirit in any of the men involved in this situation.
Ms. Miranda made a mistake while the men misbehaved badly. Yet, who was punished? The woman.
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It is neither trials nor relationships nor successes nor failures that define a man, but the choices he makes while handling them. – Richelle E. Goodrich, author
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This could have been a good lesson for all the girls in Ms. Miranda’s middle school. Don’t take these types of photographs unless you want them to be circulated, no matter what the guy says. You never know what can happen in the long haul. Ms. Miranda didn’t release this photo, but once it was out, she had no way to stop others from seeing it. Girls need to hear her story in order to not make the same mistakes. And what better place than at her own middle school.
I’d hate to be a teenage girl in the class of any of the male teachers who viewed Ms. Miranda’s photograph. How could you trust them not to be looking at you like a sexual being also? Neither the boyfriend (if he released the picture), the principal, or the male teachers who chose to ogle the photograph showed good character enough to be involved with leading young students. As far as I’m concerned, they should be punished as well.
If you, or someone you know, are in need of prayer, please let me know and I’ll be happy to pray for the situation.
