A View from the Pew: Don’t Disturb my Peace with Secondhand Noise

Don’t walk up to me carrying whispers like they’re wisdom. Don’t interrupt my purpose with what somebody said about me—because if they said it to you and not to me, that already tells me something about them… and it tells me something about you.

My only question is simple: What did you say… and why were they so comfortable saying it to you? See, we spend too much time chasing echoes instead of guarding our energy. Folks will bring you fragments, half-truths, and conversations you were never meant to carry—not to help you, but to stir you. And if you’re not careful, you’ll let somebody else’s insecurity become your disturbance.

But I’ve learned something sitting on this pew of life: Peace is too expensive to be interrupted by cheap conversations. If someone has something to say about me, they know where to find me. I’m not hard to locate. I’m not hiding. I’m not ducking. I’m standing in what God has called me to be. And if they don’t have enough courage to come to me directly, then why should I give their words enough power to move me?

And to the one delivering the message—understand this: You are not neutral just because you’re repeating it. Silence is a response. Correction is a response. Loyalty is a response. So, again I ask—what did you say? Did you challenge it? Did you correct it? Did you defend what was right? Or did you sit there in silence, nodding, allowing my name to be mishandled in your presence? Did you defend my name? Did you shut it down? Or did you sit there, entertained, participating in a conversation that should have never made it past the first sentence?

Because silence is not always innocence. Sometimes, silence is endorsement. Because people only bring mess where mess is welcomed. Let me be clear—I’m not entertaining gossip, I’m not hosting confusion, and I’m not negotiating my peace. God has brought me too far, carried me through too much, and covered me in too many storms for me to be shaken by whispers in the wind.

Some of us need to grow to the place where everything we hear doesn’t deserve a response. Some battles are beneath you. Some conversations are distractions dressed up as information. And hear me when I say this: Everybody who brings you something is not bringing you something for you—they’re bringing it to you because of what’s in them.

So, protect your space. Guard your spirit. Check your circle. Because if someone can sit comfortably and tear you down in front of another person, the real question isn’t just about the speaker—it’s about the audience. In case you missed that, let me say it this way, sometimes the betrayal isn’t in what was said— it’s in who allowed it to be said.

So, if you can listen to it, you can keep it. If you can entertain it, you can own it. But as for me… I’m choosing peace. I’m protecting my purpose. And I’m guarding the atmosphere God gave me to breathe in.