A Soft Answer

I had a bit of a rough day yesterday. So I decided to journal about it...on my blog. And since I can write about Vatever I Vant, I figured why not?

Anywho, yesterday definitely won't be filed away as one of my favorite days of all time. In fact, I got my "feel feels" hurt. Thumb + finger to forehead=loser...that sort of feeling. But seriously, it turned my day into a rotten banana.

For anyone who knows me, I'm rather a tender soul (sniff, sniff) and I take things to heart pretty easily. I could never be a movie star. One bad tabloid picture and I'd be draped over the bed, box of Kleenex in hand and a six pack of Hershey bars...well wrappers, strewn about.

It got better, though. A lot better.

First, I had a ridiculously therapeutic hour of sweating my Nike's off at Jazzercise. (Yeah, I Jazzercise and no, there are no headbands or leotards involved anymore.) In fact, we rocked out to some pretty good dance music. Which brings me to my second point. During a lovely cool down to the sound of Michael Bublé, the thought struck me--"Stop fuming about it."

"What?" I glanced at the other Jazzercisers but knew it was just the voice inside me. "Yeah, it's not going to go away and you certainly have no possession of a time machine, nor do you have any friends smart enough to invent one (no offense, friends), so move on." But really, I didn't know how to move on and with this thought process rolling around in my mind, I realized that I was so busy running away from the sliver in the eyes of others, that I smacked right into the log in my own. It really hurt! So I sat there last night, frozen peas pressed to forehead, thinking about what's really the core of all this.

And that's when I realized the lesson I was meant to learn: Sometimes, even as Christians, we forget to be nice.

Gasp! No, it's true. And I found myself very, very at fault of that.

I thought over some of the times that I responded in a rather not-so-nice-way towards others and the sting of shame burned hot. I imagined all the people that I had hurt with my words--words spoken in the heat of anger, without thinking or weighing the consequences of how it would make the other person feel.

Now, the bump on my head was really starting to throb and I knew I needed to ask for God's forgiveness. I did, and the best part is that I know he did. Now about the people I've hurt. My motto in a tough situation has often been "Kill 'em with kindness." I don't always heed that advice (obviously), but from now on, I'm going to pin it to my heart as a reminder that a soft answer turns away wrath and a kind word is sometimes just what someone needs.

After the way I felt yesterday, the icky feeling in the pit of my stomach, I realized that I never want to be rude or unkind to anyone again. I don't know if that's actually possible, but then I figured--why not? Isn't that the example that Christ lived out on earth--the one we're supposed to follow?

Besides, it's not as if I witnessed someone running over a basket of newborn kittens. In fact, all those times that I was SOOO offended, weren't really that big of a deal to begin with. I could have shrugged it off, better yet laughed it off, and moved on with kindness towards others. And then of course there's that other golden rule: you can't help what others do, you can only help what you do. Ain't that the truth. I'm going to try, really, really try, to keep Jesus' love as the filter in front of my lips so that I can think BEFORE I speak and treat other's the way I would want to be treated.

Blessings!

Photo credit: Pride and Prejudice, 2005