Stepping Up When It’s Really Uncomfortable

By Jessica Brodie

I didn’t want to be reprimanding that stranger on my honeymoon, and I promise you I’m no hothead. Yet there I was, standing in the fancy hotel lobby in my wedding dress, witnessing injustice unfold before me.

Ahead of us in line, a well-dressed man seething with anger and arrogance was berating the young hotel clerk.

“Do you know who I am?” he demanded in a deep, loud voice, looming over her with all the size he could muster.

One look at her face told me she was about to burst into tears in spite of trying her best to be incredibly helpful to him.

My husband and I exchanged horrified looks as we stood watching their encounter. Finally, I just couldn’t take his bullying behavior anymore.

I stepped close to the man; I could tell he noticed me.

“That is not nice,” I informed him.

That’s all it took. Embarrassment flooded his face, and he clamped his lips tight, clenching and unclenching his fists. Finally, he took a couple of deep breaths and stepped away.

My husband chuckles when he tells that story to our kids, making it out as if I’m some sort of great defender of the oppressed, but it wasn’t like that at all. I simply couldn’t stand there any longer helplessly watching someone get badgered and bullied. Sometimes, even when it’s uncomfortable and it’s the last thing we want to do, we need to stand up and do the right thing. Wedding dress or not.

Have you been in a similar situation? Maybe you stood up for a kid on the school playground who was being picked on. Maybe you were the voice of reason in a hot-headed crowd. Maybe you didn’t laugh at the off-color joke, or called the joker out for their unkindness.

Those of us who follow Christ, who call ourselves Christians, are called to a different standard in this world. We might be living on this earth, but as the apostle Paul tells us, our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20).

None of us is perfect, but we’re supposed to model goodness and righteousness and Christlikeness in the world, and sometimes that means saying something unpopular, stepping up when you don’t really want to, and even risking our own safety—not in some holier-than-thou manner but because it’s simply the right thing to do. It’s what Jesus would have done.

My novel Hidden Seeds, which releases May 5, tells the story of two women who become friends. However, one of them, Laney, has a big secret. She’s escaped The Life, a trafficking ring she’s been involved with since she ran away from home at age 13. She’s gone to great lengths to conceal her past from the world and is trying her very best to make a new life for herself and her young daughter. But when her new friend’s younger sister becomes endangered, Laney has a decision to make. Will she risk her carefully protected identity to help save someone else? Will she do the right thing even though it’s incredibly uncomfortable and difficult?

That’s the question for us all, isn’t it? Will we do the right thing when God calls us to? When we witness injustice? Will we step in, intervene, help when someone else is at risk, even if it means hurting ourselves or jeopardizing our standing or simply being uncomfortable at a time when we really just want to be enjoying ourselves?

The truth is that I don’t always do the right thing. But I want to. I know I’m supposed to.

How about you—is there a time in your life when you can remember stepping outside your comfort zone to right a wrong in this world? Is there a time you didn’t, and you’re still regretting it? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

Today, I hope you join me in considering all the ways you can model Jesus today, all the ways you can help model righteousness.

Even in a wedding dress.

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