What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear about shaken baby syndrome? Or daycare malpractice?
If you’re anything like me, your first response is outrage.
That’s so wrong! You may fume. How do people get away with this stuff?
There’s nothing wrong with getting upset at evil. Some things are just wrong. Babies shaken to the point of brain damage. Toddlers mistreated and even killed. Such things ought not to be.
There’s nothing wrong with rising up against evil — but there is something very wrong with the sin we often commit in the process.
I’ve done it. You’ve done it. Everybody has done it at one time or another. We know we shouldn’t, but at the time, it seems like a small thing.
Justifiable, even.
We end up reacting, pointing fingers, and spreading news before we even research the facts.
That’s called gossip. It’s called believing the worst. It’s called “guilty until proven innocent,” rather than the other way around.
Sadly, even once proven innocent, the victim of this kind of accusation has a long, hard journey ahead to get their life back.
World Magazine ran a story on May 2 called “Shaken Family,” which described the ordeal of a father who was sent to jail for ostensibly shaking his infant daughter.
Josh Burns is not the only parent who has been jailed over the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.
This abuse diagnosis is facing new scrutiny, and according to this article, there are hundreds more questionable cases.
Imagine going to jail over something you didn’t do.
Imagine being unable to participate in the milestones of your little girl’s life, blacklisted by the general public as a horrible parent.
Another more recent story involved a daycare provider in my own city who was accused of striking a two-year-old in the abdomen and ultimately causing the little girl’s death. The young woman’s trial was in the local paper for weeks.
She was finally acquitted after evidence indicated the toddler had a disease which caused her death — but it was too late for this woman’s reputation and her career.
She’d earned a degree focused on early childhood development in order to pursue her dream of running a daycare.
She shut down the daycare and the dream. She battled depression.
In a heart-wrenching remark, the young woman said that all the well-wishing in the world couldn’t make up for the pain of being falsely accused of killing a child she loved.
This is the devastation caused by believing the worst. It’s the other part of injustice.
It’s the ugliness of what righteous indignation can do.
Do you find yourself grabbing and running with new, sensational information about horrible things someone supposedly did?
Are you quick to get incensed about an innocent victim … but then unwittingly create another victim by means of quick judgment and gossip?
This can happen with less dramatic circumstances, but equally devastating results.
I know two different couples in two different towns and churches, both of whom were subtly black-listed by their pastors.
Their reputations were undermined, their characters questioned, their motives doubted.
Friendships were strained. Trust was broken.
Eventually the pastors repented to these couples for their attitudes and actions — but by then, it was too late to restore what had been damaged.
“The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts.” — Proverbs 18:8
The damage from believing the worst goes deep and is not easily undone.
Have you ever been a victim of false accusation?
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