Relationships

Back to relationships. Yesterday was a day of relationship growth, through honesty, silence, and carefully chosen words.

Historically, I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut.

We have had a great set of messages at church from the book of James and it is just full of great advice. The Message translation says, "It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on reputation, sent he whole world up in smoke, and go up in smoke with it." (James 3) Oh my!

So, not wanting to start any infernos and go up in smoke, I am keeping my mouth shut, and when I do open it, trying not to have an edge. Since I can't do this alone, I have enlisted help from a variety of sources, because relationships matter.

Some thoughts.

• Never shame, blame or criticize. You may want to, but don't.
• Silence is often the better option, especially when tempted to react (not respond) with shame, blame or criticism.
• Consider the other's perception of how you communicate with them. Howie seems to always hear an edge in my voice, and I could be whispering and Nicole would still think I was yelling.
• Consider it a learning opportunity when you have to repeat yourself. I am needing to do that a lot with my mom (repeat myself) and that edge could come back in a hurry...

So how did I practice these things?

• My mom will just never be able to use the Direct TV remote. It involves too many steps.
• I didn't say a negative word when Matt and I finally had three minutes together and he shared that he couldn't find his phone, passport or driver's license. No ID. My only comment was, "well, make sure you don't get stopped when you're driving" while inside my thoughts were more along the lines of, "well, drinking too much might have something to do with it, but, oh well, without an ID, there won't be any of that. What a shame." I kept my mouth shut. It is too easy for my humor to turn rancid and become sarcasm.
• Margin helps. Especially with Nicole.
• And with Howie, just really understanding that we see our worlds completely differently. He is red, I am yellow, and together we make orange.

Peace to you this day. Despite trials, I remain filled with the peace of One who is stronger than me.