My face burned.
At the end of a long day with two whiny toddlers, all I wanted was to plonk ourselves down and get a drink. I walked towards a benched table.
“Can I get you a high chair?”
“No.”
“How about sitting on the normal chairs? It’s safer. You have little-“
“No,” I said, “We prefer this.”
“But. Your kids, how about-“
Triggered, I snapped.
“Could you please not tell me how to parent my children?”
I drew a deep breath.
A week later, we returned.
“You’re Wai Jia, right? I follow your blog. I’m really sorry, I wasn’t trying to tell you how you parent your children. It’s just that a previous customer’s kids sat on the bench, fell over and had stitches.”
My face flushed red. If there were a hole in the ground, I’d have darted right in.
“Gosh. I’m so sorry for being so hangry last week. Our dining table has a bench setup-Could you forgive me?”
Since then, I’ve always thought of that incident whenever the word “integrity” comes up. The dictionary defines it as 1. being honest, 2. being whole and undivided.
We all want to be people of integrity- but what does that mean? Suppose it means being “whole, undivided,” then it means being unfragmented, stable, consistent. In times of pressure, we’d be the same person, recognizable in public or not.
This happened over a year ago.
Recently, while running a video shoot for a campaign, things ran late. My heart raced as I called my senior pastor to come later.
But he arrived early. Instead of being peeved, he smiled, “Don’t worry, it’s OK.”
Later, I found out he waited an hour in his car. He was the same person, on and off pulpit.
THAT- was integrity.
As I try to quell my anxiety about a video interview today, I wonder what my reaction might be if the schedule runs late. I’d probably be vexed, given the trouble we took to get babysitters to watch our kids.
But I remind myself, that integrity is about being consistent, in every time at every place. It’s being the same person in all circumstance. It’s being whole, undivided. And that comes only from building our characters block by block, from the fruit of being wholly undivided to One who made us whole.