Ever have a conversation with someone and receive nothing but criticism? Or everything you say is questioned, judged, or second-guessed?
So you back up and try to figure out why they misunderstand what you say. You begin to analyze your own words and what you meant by what you said, or wrote? When you do your best to explain yourself and find yourself with less understanding than you when you begun, it may be time to turn a deaf ear or blind eye.
I love to open an email from someone and see positive statements, and find encouraging words. I have some great friends who send me uplifting thoughts all the time. I like to visit blogs that comfort me, assure me, and help me see the goodness in God. It's how I am. Most folks are like me. They want affirmation. When they share the depths of their hearts, they like wisdom, hope, and kindness returned. Sometimes people think they know you and no matter how much you share about yourself, they only have a glimpse of who you are...yet, they have an abundance of grace and mercy in their words.
Every now and then I get a person who boggles my mind. They interpret things I say in a cloud of mystery. They judge what I say by what they "think" I'm saying, and when I explain what I mean, they still go back to what they think I meant originally and go on and on about how I couldn't have meant what I said. It gets so confusing, I lose all desire for conversation. Sometimes they apologize for saying things that they believe offend and when I fail to answer how they thought I should, they turn that around, too. Sometimes I wonder if all a person wants to do is dissect and parse words. This gives me the feeling they don't trust me; that they think I am deceitful or embellishing a situation or circumstance-- that I am simply trying to eat my words by spewing new ones. When an impasse comes, I figure it's time to just let things be. Let others think what they want. Inevitably, when I think the air is cleared on the whole thing, a few weeks later it happens all over again. That is when I am so very grateful for the majority of people in my life.
Any given day I have several people share words of encouragement, pithy quotes of wisdom. They make up for the one who doesn't really understand where I'm coming from. They impact my life for the better. Scripture has a lot to say about speaking to one another. For instance:
"A man has joy in making an apt answer, and a word spoken at the right moment-- how good it is!" Proverbs 15:23
I get a lot of "joy in making an apt answer". I try to speak as I want to be spoken to. I seek to speak as God would have me. But sometimes...well, sometimes I just don't pick the right words. Or I say the right words at the wrong moment. But "how good it is" when someone tells me I said just what they needed to hear. Joy explodes and is its own reward.
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