Four Ways to Repair What We Can’t Unsay

Sometimes we see things that we wish we could unsee. And sometimes we say things that we wish we could unsay. We all say things we regret in moments of anger, frustration, or even unhealthy levels of transparency.

When our children were young, we had a family devotional on the permanency of what we say. We gave each child a paper plate and full tube of tooth paste and asked them to squeeze the entire tube  onto the plate. They had a blast doing their assignment!! You know what came next. When they finished, we said “Ok, now put it all back in the tube.” Words are like that.

Words carry weight.

Spoken or written, words weigh in on the heavy side.

Hurtful words can have crushing weight. 

Words cannot be unsaid.

We can try to keep our words from doing damage with a few prevention practices.

Practice saying less.

Listen more. Talk less.

Use brevity.

The more words you speak, the less they mean. So what good are they? [Ecc 6:11, NLT]

Pause before you say it.

Count. Take a breath.

Find a softer way to say it.

Decide not to say it at all.

The heart of the godly thinks carefully before speaking; [Prov 15:28a, NLT]

Kind words are like honey – sweet to the soul and healthy for the body. [Prov 16:24, NLT]

Wise words bring approval, but fools are destroyed by their own words. [Ecc 10:12, NLT]

But when you say something you regret, here are four ways to try to make repairs.

Own the mistake

When I said … to you, I was wrong.

Apologize                                                               

I’m sorry. [period – no buts]

Empathize

That must have made you feel …

Ask forgiveness

Will you forgive me?

These four actions won’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, but they will clean up some of the mess. Give it a try. It may feel awkward. But it may mend a wound in a relationship.

Small Mighty Ways

The 50^th anniversary of Apollo 11 transported me back to that day, sitting on the ottoman in our neighbor’s living room. I was nine years old, and Ed and Nadine had invited me over to watch the landing on the moon. We didn’t have a TV at my house and I guess they didn’t want me to miss such a big moment of history. They were new neighbors, but they continued doing thoughtful things like that for me.  Small things that added up to mighty things over time. They let me listen in while Ed talked on his CB radio. They let me borrow their National Geographic magazines for my school projects. Their house was where I ran when someone tried to break into ours one summer day. They hired me to mow their lawn when I got older. And they always talked to me like I mattered.

I want to be more like Ed and Nadine. I want to be the nice old neighbor lady. I want to be the adult that children want to be around. The kind of grownup who still does fun things. The one who made children feel like they matter.

But this is a different age than the one I grew up in. The spotlight has revealed corners of child abuse with unsuspected family and friends. That helpful spotlight can hold us back from interacting at all, for fear of getting in a vulnerable situation. But then we lose the chance to help them. We lose the chance to imitate Christ.

Three of the gospels record the story of Jesus scolding his disciples for sending the children away. Luke tells it this way:

One day some mothers brought their babies to him to touch and bless. But the disciples told them to go away. Then Jesus called the children over to him and said to the disciples, “Let the little children come to me! Never send them away! For the Kingdom of God belongs to men who have hearts as trusting as these little children’s.” [Luke 18:15-16, TLB]

So what we do in this era of caution? How do we balance things? How do we be the nice adult in a child’s life without worrying their parents or putting ourselves at risk? Here are three small but mighty things you can do.

1)    Get to know the whole family, not just the child.

Build a relationship with the parents first. Include the whole family. Learn everyone’s name. Include the whole family when you take over a holiday goody bag. Smile and speak to every family member when you see them out working or playing in the yard. It has never been appropriate to just befriend the child.

2)    Pray for them.

If you keep a prayer journal/list, add their names and pray God’s protection and favor on them. Or whisper a prayer for them every time you see them outside. As you get to know the family better, you’ll learn specific needs to pray about. 

3)    Speak blessing over the child whenever you see them.

At every opportunity, say something positive to the child. Maybe ‘I saw how hard you kicked that ball. You must be so strong!’ or ‘I noticed you do a great job sharing with your little brother.’ Mr. Rogers taught us how impactful spoken affirmation is. Spoken blessings are even more powerful. They are positive statements that invoke the blessings of God upon another.

In a prayer, you direct your words to God. In a blessing, you direct your words to the person receiving the blessing. My pastor speaks this blessing at the end of every service. God instructed Moses and Aaron to say to the people of Israel.

May the Lord bless you and protect you.

May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you.

May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace.

                                                     [Numbers 6:24-26, NLT]

You could keep it simple and just say one of these lines. Or create your own shorter spoken blessing. Speaking blessings will feel more awkward than saying hello or sending up a prayer. But give it a try!

Befriending, praying, and speaking blessing are three small but mighty ways you can be one of the good adults to the next generation. They will run into many adults who are not in their corner. Be one of the ones who show them they matter in small mighty ways.

Life’s Plan B’s

Have you ever prayed about a big life event and felt like you got ‘Plan B’ for an answer? Some prayers are like that. You feel like you didn’t get the answer you wanted. You might even feel like the good good Father is giving all the good good gifts to His other kids, but not to you. Those are the prayers that demand trust that He knows best. Many of my prayers have fallen in this spectrum, but one became the largest chapter of my life story.

I was 28 years old and felt like real life was just about to get started. We had invested our first ten years of adulthood preparing for it. Our son had arrived, morphing us from couple to family. We dragged ourselves over the academic finish line, two exhausted parents, just wanting to get jobs and launch comfortable normal lives at last.

A few months before graduation, we began to send out resumes and sign up for campus interviews. We prayed hard that God would help us find the right jobs in the right place. We asked Him to open the doors He knew were best and close the ones that weren’t.

Then we began to collect rejection letters. We had a friend who wallpapered his living room wall with his rejections. Ours went into a folder that accumulated disappointments. The next few months tested our faith, as we waited and trusted and panicked and waited and trusted and panicked.

And then three good job offers came through in my technology field. Two offers were in the Midwest where we wanted to live, close to our  families. One was a 15 hour drive away, in an industry I hadn’t envisioned working in. It was in a city we had visited before in sweltering August. We may have used the word “never” as our deodorant melted into trickles sliding from our pits down to our waistline. It was where we knew exactly zero people. And it turned out to be the only option that could pair with the location of my husband’s post-doctoral offer.

We didn’t feel like we had much of a choice, so we accepted these opportunities. We hoped this would just be for a few years and then we could move closer to home and get different jobs and find the normal life we had expected. Plan A.

I’m not sure how it even happened, but thirty years have gone by. We still live here, both retired from careers we didn’t expect to have, living a Plan B we didn’t expect to live. Our daughter was born Texan here. We visited our family as often as we could, but also made friendships that grew into our local family. We embraced the state traditions of BBQ and bluebonnet fields of Plan B. We learned to say “ya’ll.” Our children found their soulmates here. It was almost as if it was meant to be.

It WAS meant to be. Because that’s what happens when you pray and leave the outcome to His all-knowing wisdom. Proverbs 16:3-4 says it well:

Commit your work to the LORD and your plans will be established. The LORD has made everything for its purpose, … [Prov 16:3-4, ESV]

I’m guilty of placing a lot of confidence in my own plans. I can find it challenging to leave the outcome to God. Sometimes it looks like He doesn’t know what He’s doing. But I have learned to trust that He sees everything in my future, while I can only speculate about it. I have learned to trust that He knows what is best for me, when it doesn’t seem best to me. I have learned that trust doesn’t mean an absence of fear, disappointment or sadness, but a belief that He’s with me. I have learned He’s working out what I cannot yet see. Sometimes it just takes some time to see it.

When Peace Trickles

Sometimes peace flows over us like a rushing river. Sometimes it is as elusive as a trickle in a dry creek bed.

Growing up, we sang a Sunday School song about peace. The message was as right as the grammar was wrong.

I’ve got peace like a river

Peace like a river

I’ve got peace like a river in my soul.

As my grandbabies came along, this song resurged in my heart as a lullaby to rock them to sleep. The soothing tune and message was just right for closing sleepy eyes. But we had to talk through the difference between peace and peas. Explaining what peace means to a two year old turned out to be tricky. And no wonder. Peace is a state of being that is often described as a feeling. Yet we can be in peace when our feelings are a jumble of fear and sadness.

Here are a few things I’ve learned about peace.

Peace tends to match the size of the problem. I’ve experienced the most peace when facing life’s biggest problems.

Loss of loved ones. Unexplainable peace.

A dreaded diagnosis. A calm sense of peace.

Major life changes. More peace than I believed possible.

When the problems are big, peace shows up like a river, flowing through my troubled mind.

But when the problems are tiny inconsequential ones like traffic jams and stubbed toes, then peace is harder to find. More like a trickle in a dry creek bed than a rushing river. When my watch reminds me to breathe during my traffic jam, I know a small problem has just overtaken my mood. Maybe this happens because I’m less likely to turn my traffic jams over to the Lord than the big things that leave me gasping for air. For the big stuff, I ask Him for His peace, because I know how fragile my own peace is.

Peace ebbs and flows with my sense of control. Even for the big stuff, I find that peace comes and goes.  It comes when I turn the problem over to Him. And it starts to leave when I start to take back control. I’m a controller, so this happens a lot.  I pray about a problem that is too big for me to solve. I feel peace about it. Then I start to think about what I can do to try to solve the problem on my own anyway. Did He not understand my timeline? Anxiety rises up and pushes peace aside. Then I remember I can’t solve this one. And I turn it back over to Him. And peace starts flowing again.

His peace is the best kind of peace. This isn’t something I can prove to you. But my experience has proven it to me. The times that I try to muster up peace on my own are trumped by the times I lean on God’s peace. I can do my deep breathing. I can find a spot of still quietness. But the peace I get from my own efforts has disappointing limits. When I seek His peace, I get a deeper kind of peace. It doesn’t make sense. It is beyond understanding.   Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard our hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. [Phil 4:7, NLT]  But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. [Romans 8:6b, NLT]  Notice the circular reference? His peace guards us and letting Him control us leads to peace. Submitting our circumstances to Him sets up a circular flow of peace that doesn’t run out.

I’m praying God’s peace on your life today whether your problems are big or small. And now may God, who gives us his peace, be with you all. Amen. [Romans 15:33, NLT]

Don’t settle for a trickle. Let it wash over you like a rushing river.

Three Ways to Use Time

“This week will be last week next week.” This phrase leaps from the bottom of my weekly planning sheet. A clever reminder that time is passing like water through a faucet.

My planner directed my life for decades: goals, to do lists, and appointments. I both mingled and compartmentalized work life and home life in search of the right balance. My tools were paper-based in the early years and then digital. When I retired, I simplified the tools. A tablet made by “Knock Knock” (Knock Knock This Week) with each page sectioned into seven days of the week. Each day has room for only a few activities. The back of the tablet warns to not ‘let yet another 168 hours of your life get away from you.’ Time, the elusive resource.

It’s funny how time just ticks on. It has no respect for interruptions or unexpected schedule changes. It gives no grace for me to hit the pause button. It continues without regard for how my day is going. If the day runs out before the tasks complete, time does not wait. Just like clock-work, today turns into yesterday. Time doesn’t care that I wasn’t finished with today.

People have worried about using time well for centuries. Paul wrote to his Ephesian friends.

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. [Eph 5:15-16, ESV]

The third piece of his instruction is explicit about how we use time. The first two are supporting actors.

1)    Be careful how you walk out your life

2)    Use wisdom

3)    Make the best use of time

Be careful how you walk out your life – We can manage time better after we’ve decided how we want to walk out our life.  First we must decide which values matter most to us. Our values establish the guard rails for our decisions. We won’t have to angst about every choice, because our values have pre-determined some of the answers. These boundaries automate much of our time management. When we are careful and intentional about how we want to live, we will spend our time like we want to live.

Use wisdom – And ‘spend’ is what we do with time. Time is a resource, like money. We can be wise or foolish in how we spend it. We can invest it or we can squander it. But unlike money, we cannot save time to use later. We only have the time given today and we can’t carry it over to tomorrow. And unlike money, we can’t wish we had as much as our neighbor, because we have the same. Time may be elusive, but it is a fair resource. Each of us have an equal 168 hours to use only in this week. Let us use wisdom in spending it.

Make the best use of time – This is a resounding call to excellence. Not average use of time. Not sufficient use of time. But best use of time. Some weeks the best use of time is to be wildly productive. Some weeks the best use of time is to rest. Most weeks the best use of time is to live in balanced rhythm. It is this dependable marching of time that provides the pressure to stay on task. To say ‘yes’ to the important and ‘no’ to the less important. To take advantage of the best opportunities. To purpose in our mind the goals that fulfill the passions of our heart. To use time well. To seek His approval and direction for each installment of 168 hours of life.

Have you used care in how you plan to walk out this next seven days? Do your calendar commitments look like they were made by a wise person? Are you making the best use of your time this week? This week will be last week next week, so use it well.