This is a true story, but to keep the following person anonymous I am going to switch the real name of the affected to a new name, Lucy.

Recently, a child named “Lucy” was afraid of the Police. Any type of Police that was visible to her, she was known to duck and hide yelling ugh ohhh, there goes tha po-po! Lucy was a young child, who depended on the adults around her to teach her how to act. Lucy only knew that when the adults around her saw a Police officer they ducked and hid yelling the same thing Lucy now yelled. When I witnessed Lucy doing this it honestly made me sad, simply because as a child I always seemed to look at Police officers and see hero’s, not villians. Lucy’s life started out a lot different than my life though. As a young child Lucy was already victim to split household, and one parent not being able to care for Lucy the way Lucy needed to be cared for. Therefore Lucy now acted as the adults around her acted. No fault of hers, she is simply a child not knowing a difference. After seeing this happen over and over again, I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew I needed to do something to show Lucy her perspective was tarnished. She didn’t understand the lack of respect that was shown when she did things like this. I tried to explain just by simply talking to her, she couldn’t understand. So I did the next thing I could think of, took her to the local Sheriff department and asked the ladies at the front if there was possibly an officer that could talk to her.

I’ve heard stories of parents taking their children to officers to “scare” them into doing the right thing (in my opinion bad approach, simply because now again they are fearful), but never knew if anyone had attempted what I was doing. I didn’t know if it would even help Lucy to understand, I just couldn’t think of any other way to help. The ladies up front seemed as if the request was rare, but understood what I was trying to do and decided to help in anyway they could.

Here we are, Lucy and I sitting in a Police building. I glance over at Lucy and you can see the gut wrenching fear in her eyes. The smallest noise had her flinching so badly she would almost jump out of her seat. An officer comes out from the back and suddenly I feel a tight squeeze on my arm as Lucy waits to see how the officer is going to treat her. She was scared out of her mind guys, I almost started crying. The officer tried to talk to her, but she would just squeeze me tighter and not answer. The officer and I both tried to show her that he was simply a man in a suit (like a super hero). Lucy was not budging, fear still firmly in place. So the officer decided to get Lucy out of the building, maybe it was all too much for her. The officer wanted to show Lucy the Police car (that had lights galore!) It was that moment, that Lucy’s grip began to loosen, but not fully. The officer asks Lucy if she wanted to sit in the front seat and turn the lights on, at first she was hesitant and even cried a few tears. She thought that meant she was in trouble. We both talked to her to calm her and explain what the officer was wanting her to do. When she realized that SHE could turn the lights on…. that’s all she wrote!

Suddenly a connection was made. Fear swept under a few years of wrong knowledge. Communication broke the strong-hold. The officer could have gotten tired of trying, but he was persistent (thank you) and in the end Lucy got her very own Police badge. She wore that badge so proudly! Suddenly when Lucy saw a Police officer she was no longer scared. She now understood that their ultimate goal is to protect.

Guys I know there are bad apples in an apple orchard. You have to step back and look at the whole orchard, while you might find a couple of  apple’s that are bad, there is a field full of amazing apples wanting to do the job they are there to do. I also know that when we instill fear into an already fearful situation the outcome may not result in what we expect.

Sometimes, not always, try to just change the prospective of what you see as bad. It could help change the outcome of the future.

Prayer: 

Understanding each-other is something you desire for us, not being like one another, but understanding each-other. God I want to ask that you search my heart for anything I need to reflect on and change. Change starts with me, and I want to try it your way. In Jesus name. -Amen.