Are there any Christians here who have actually "turned the other cheek"?

Question

If so, describe the situation.

Answer 1

Here is a good testimony I posted the other day...

Among Rwandans, honest storytelling has become a strong catalyst for reconciliation and remembrance. Missionary Guillebaud shared with me Deborah Niyakabirika's story, chronicled in a World Vision Australia video. Her son was murdered, in an isolated act of ethnic vengeance, three years after the genocide.

Months after the killing, a young man visited Deborah. "I killed your son," he said. "Take me to the authorities and let them deal with me as they will. I have not slept since I shot him. Every time I lie down I see you praying, and I know you are praying for me."

Deborah answered, "You are no longer an animal but a man taking responsibility for your actions. I do not want to add death to death."

Then Deborah did the extraordinary. "But I want you to restore justice by replacing the son you killed," she continued. "I am asking you to become my son. When you visit me, I will care for you."

Today, that young man is an adopted member of her household.

Now THAT is the love of Christ!

Answer 2

Literally, yes. I was slapped by my youngest daughter when she was 16 and going through a rough time in her life. I stood there and said nothing. She was in a rage. When she saw my face, she stopped her rage and cried. I held her. I forgave her. She still went through a lot of teenage junk, but the lesson in forgiveness stuck with her. Now, she is one of the most forgiving people I know.

Figuratively, yes. Every time I don't reply in anger to someone who is saying something horrible about my Lord and Savior. I do that all the time on this forum. I may read something that really makes me sad or upset because the name of my Lord has been dragged through the mud. But an angry response would be childish and non-productive.

Answer 3

Mav does. Mav does all the time.

Mav not a carpet to be walked on, Mav actually very strong, but Mav just doesn't think some things are worth the arguement.

Answer 4

Anyone who has endured insult or abuse at the hands of another, without responding in kind, has "turned the other cheek".

Answer 5

When my cousin was in school, if someone hit him, he would turn the other cheek, but after that the fight was on!

Answer 6

I don't know what you are referring to but I can say that god helps me everyday and if someone is not accepting or does not value me, then they are just not having a good day theirselvles

Answer 7

Sorry this is so long.
I don't know if this counts, and I'm not trying to toot my own horn. But one time at work my boss told me to set up a meeting with everyone at the school I worked for to evaluate their computer skills via a short survey. Those who for some reason were not able to attend I was to set up one on one meetings at their convenience over the course of a two week period. I did so, but there were a handful of employees who still couldn't make time to meet with me. I finally had to mandate they come on a specific day. However, I was given another project to work on and missed the meeting. I felt horrible, but when I arrived I found out that only two of the five showed up. I was able to catch one of them with no problems. I looked for the other, who I only knew by sight, but couldn't find her. The next day I told my boss what happened and she said that she recieved a note to give to me from the person who showed up but that I missed seeing. My boss told me she read it, and that it was a scathing multi-paged letter written in a very angry handwriting, that called me horrible names and called for administrative action. She (my boss) asked what had happened. I told her all I knew which wasn't much and told her I would go apoligize right away. She said that I might not want to do that just yet as this woman was still extremely mad at me, then gave me the letter. I told her I didn't want it. It was coming from a place of anger and probably didn't represent the person well. I refused to touch the letter. It was thrown at me and landed in my chair, I emptied my chair into the trashcan and gave the woman who wrote it a few days to calm down before I even allowed her to see me. I never mentioned the incident. Over the next few months I was able to talk to her, but she had a distance about her around me. I don't think I ever treated her differently, or accusitorily, but I acted as if nothing had happened because to me nothing did. I never read the note, but only heard about the contents. The school I worked in, while a public school, employed many, MANY openly Christian people. The library where this woman worked played christian music in the background, and her husband managed a Christian bookstore. Soon the woman felt very bad for having written what she did, and one day as I was helping her co-worker with a computer problem she told me she needed to speak to me privately. She said that she felt just horrible about what she had written in the letter she sent me. I told her not to worry about it. She persisted and said that she did worry about it, and that she has thought about it a lot and that she understood if I wouldn't, but she needed to at least ask my forgiveness for everything in the letter and for even having written it in the first place. I told her that she didn't need to worry about it anymore, that I had forgiven her a long time ago. I told her that I knew the letter didn't reflect who she really was, and that it was written out of anger for the moment. She couldn't believe it. She asked how I could so quickly forgive? She said she was very surprised to see me so quickly after she had written the letter (even though I thought I had given her several days to calm down), and that when she did she knew I was going to really fire back and that we were going to have this major arguement. But when she saw that I never did that, she started to steel herself against me every time I came into contact with her, and every time I was nice or pleasent to her. She said she just couldn't understand. She said she knew what she had written and that if she had recieved such a letter from someone she didn't know she would have reacted so differently. Then she told me I was more of a Christian than she was. She said a lot of the things in the letter were written just to be mean, in the hopes of getting a reaction out of me. I told her I knew (meaning, I thought that's probably what the letter was all about). She started crying. Most of this time I was sort of looking down, avoiding eye contact. My intent in this was to allow her to say what she needed to say, without making it more difficult and heart-wrenching for her than was necessary. It wasn't to make it seem like I didn't care, or that I was just shrugging off her very heartfelt appology and plea for forgiveness. But when she started crying I looked up and noticed tears had been falling from her eyes for a while now. That did it, I started to well up too. I walked over and gave her a hug and told her it was alright, that all was forgiven, and that it was as if it didn't happen (again - to me it never did because I never read the letter, that made it a lot easier). For several months after this incident, I didn't think anything about it. I was relocated to a room next door to the library and this woman and I saw more of each other, and I could sense a peace between us. Then one day her supervisor (who also was my supervisor the year before) had a heart wrenching miscarriage and took several weeks off of work. I was in a slow time in my job and volunteered to help out in the library. One day, at lunch I thought I'd get a head start on shelving the books and found this woman there shelving and crying for the situation her friend and boss was in. I was able to provide some words of consolation to her, which it seemed immediately gave her some perspective on the whole situation. Again, she said, that I probably had a better handle on things than her Christian friends. I asked her what she meant. She said, well, you know, you're not Christian - you're Mormon. I had to sort of chuckle at that and told her I was Christian, but that the type of Christian I was/am is Mormon. I explained that Christ was my Savior just as He was hers. A few weeks later one of her children came into the library while I was there and mentioned to me that they were so glad that I had forgiven their Mom. That it had really made a difference at home and told me that while she knew her Mom wrote a letter to me, she didn't know what was said. Then she asked me what it said. I told her, with her Mom there helping the other child that I didn't know, I hadn't read it, that I just threw it away. That got the woman's attention. "You didn't read it?!!" she questioned. I told her I had not. "But you were able to forgive me, and you hadn't even read it?!?" I told her that that's what made it easy to forgive her and that it seemed that it was she who needed to be forgiven, not me who needed an apology. I think that really stunned her. I left soon thereafter and have never seen her since.